


5. Anathema

by veryloudfish



Series: River Ward made me write fanfic [5]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Comfort Sex, Cyberpunk 2077 Spoilers, Dark and Heavy Themes, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Smut, F/M, Light Dom/sub, Plot, River's PI work, Smut, Voyeurism, extended ending, i promise there will be sexy time but for now you have to wait please forgive me, my canon post nomad ending, posting before the entire work is done i might have a heart attack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:41:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 39,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28879650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veryloudfish/pseuds/veryloudfish
Summary: Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.
Relationships: Female V/River Ward, V/River Ward
Series: River Ward made me write fanfic [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2105454
Comments: 273
Kudos: 177





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I’m going to try something a little different this time. I’m going to do a serial for a piece I’m still writing which is TERRIFYING. Hah! Please be gentle with me.
> 
> Since I’m going to post scene by scene this means…there will not be smut every post, forgive me, but it will appear! Because we all know River and V can’t keep it in their pants around each other, don’t we?
> 
> I assume this will end up being a novella length work. I’ll try to keep posting scenes every few days since I had a good lead built up already. I hope you all enjoy it! There will be much plot. I imagine this as an extended side quest in the context of the game.
> 
> You guys are the best, and I hope you like my plot as much as my porn. 
> 
> This will go to some dark and heavy places, reader beware, and I plan to pull in other NPCs from the game.
> 
> Thank you for reading. <3

I think I'd always known we'd run up against a case worse than Randy's. We deluded ourselves, believing it would always be easier without the victim being one of our own, and maybe Peter Pan was an outlier in a world filled with sick fucks.

Well, this one had finally proven us wrong after at sixteen dead kids in three months – at least the ones we knew about – and two failed attempts corner the bastard. 

Maybe third time would be a charm. It fucking needed to be. 

“ _Nothing on my end yet_.” Randy’s voice on coms. I knew River was right there with him, probably pacing like a starving animal. As much as he wanted to be in the thick with me, stealth was our best ally now, especially after we’d been made twice already.

I pinged him back, text only. _**All quiet here**_.

“ _Let you know as soon as anything changes, but V…_ ” Randy hesitated, which made me still. He’d come miles since our bar conversation a few years back and if he kept it up, he’d outpace my own netrunner skills in another year at most. He had damn good instincts and I trusted him fully at my back. “ _Everything is quiet as shit. No movement, no alerts. Might fucking have the fucker this time._ ”

 _ **Fingers crossed**_. I leaned forward, peering into the roof access, trying not to let my heart race at the excitement in Randy’s voice. Wouldn’t do anyone any good to get ahead of ourselves, but I really fucked hope his was right. _**Drop down looks clear**_.

“ _After you’re in, map says a short catwalk to vents then a drop down to stairwell access_.”

_**Preem. Dark for now.** _

I took one more breath, in and out like Misty always talked about for those damn meditations, and I counted to ten before I slid the latch and slipped inside the warehouse. I’d done this shit a thousand times, often deep inside heavily armed operations. A big part of my street cred at this point came from my practiced ability to get in and out unseen. I could do without Dino calling me Twinkle Toes as a result, which had spread like wildfire among the other fixers, but they could call me whatever the fuck they wanted if this run yielded results.

I slipped down to the catwalk, silent and when the camera’s rotation pivoted, I darted into the light and vaulted onto the ventilation duct. Needed to keep everything untouched; whoever the killer was, they were very skilled. The first time we’d found a footprint and chased down the location, turning a camera off remotely triggered a cascade which wiped their systems and warned them. The entire place was empty by the time we reached the servers. 

The second time, they’d known we were coming and left the doors open, the hard drives bare and laid out in neat pile, with generic greeter shard about trying your best. 

Now though, I thought as I waited for the camera to finished turning before balancing my way across to the next junction, now it felt like we had the advantage. 

I sniffed the air, no missing the scent of explosives. I didn’t scan, just used my enhanced vision without pinging anything. Saw the first mine right where I needed to jump down. I knew River and Randy were watching through my eyes, probably just as frustrated I couldn’t disarm it and move on, but I didn’t dare risk it. Who knew if it was tied into their main system. 

I flattened myself against the ducts, my netrunner suit equipped with an active cameo unit, temperature mask and sound dampening weave. The loadout had cost an arm and a leg, and so far no regrets. I blew out a hot breath, steadied myself for the next camera pass, and then sprang between the duct, landing on the stairway rail above the landmine with my bare feet. I swayed, catching the bar with both hands in a crouch.

No beeping. Didn’t waste any more time, keeping on the rail like a balance beam until I could flatten myself against a wall. I shot the text out: _**Next**_

“ _My uncle says to stop showing off. And if he starts swooning, he’s going to make me sick, so please_.” I grinned despite the tension, at the attempt to lighten the mood which had been drowning us for weeks. “ _Three floors to go, but you’ll have the walls the rest of the way down. And before you waste bandwidth replying, yeah, yeah that was pretty fucking preem, Auntie V. Moving on_.”

I fucking wished this was a normal run, where I was flipping over and showing off to try and get a laugh in the middle of heist. Instead, I crushed the levity and made my way deeper in the warehouse.

When I smelled blood, my stomach did an uncomfortable flip. We hadn’t found any bodies at the other locales. They always turned up in the river, the oil fields, dumpsters, which was part of what made this whole thing so frustrating. At this point, the only real link between the dead was no link at all, just dumped bodies which had barely been touched beyond superficial bruising. Cause of death always seemed to be natural causes – which obviously made no fucking sense for a kid klepped and dumped.

I drew a deep breath, counting to ten, forcing my rage down to a manageable level. Pulling myself back to the merc with the longstanding rep for keeping her cool and being super fucking effective. I pulled Lizzie from the suit holster.

“ _V, your vitals are jumping. All good?_ ”

_**Smell blood.** _

“ _Copy_.” Randy’s voice was all biz. “ _All signs point to the third door down this hall. Larger room, warmer on the scans. Far as I can tell, the doors aren’t locked._ ” 

_**Bird eyes still clear? Recording?** _

_“Stream is running clean, copying and uploading to our backup net as it flies. River is on deck.”_

_**Going in.** _

I crept along the hallway to the third door, the concrete damp and the air chilled. If things went to shit, River would be here in minutes. We were deep in Padre’s territory, so we’d looped in the fixer before we started this run, and he had resources standing by if things got out of control. He’d even said a blessing for our success over the halo. Although it wasn’t fear driving my thoughts to backup; it was the burning desire to bury this fucker for good.

Flattening myself against the door, I tried to get a peek through the windows into the next room. They were covered in reflective plastic, and I couldn’t get a good look. I nudged with my elbow, the door swinging silently inward. Kept my body low, my toes to keep the door from tapping when it closed.  
Definitely the room with hardware; the temp jumped as soon as I moved inside and so did the smell. It went beyond fresh blood, some of it old and stale, rancid. A moan came from my left, and my heart about stopped.

A teenager, about as old as Randy when he was grabbed three years ago, the boy tied to the gurney with a braindance wreath and his neck jacked in. He convulsed a few times, the wreath flickering, the lights bright red. 

It took everything in me to keep from ripping it off his head; my mind jumped to Evelyn Parker, how Judy needed to jack her out to avoid doing more damage.  


The kid started seizing.

“ _Fuck, V, that doesn’t look good_.” First time I’d heard a shake in Randy’s voice over coms. 

I didn’t answer, didn’t trust myself to keep control, instead slinking along the gurney, which blocked my view around to the computer set up on the far side of the room. Looked like the cables from his neck ran along the floor with about a dozen others, connecting to other slabs, tables and a netrunner chair. I tried to take inventory of the room, but then the kid jerked violently, and the BD wreath flared before going dark.

I grabbed the kid’s wrist, desperately searching for a pulse and…nothing. He was still warm, he’d been right there a second before, but now…

The sound of chair pushing across the concrete floor jarred my senses and I launched upright, gun honed. “Don’t move or I will fucking end you.”

At least six bodies were laid out in the room, from what I could tell all dead like the boy I could have saved, that I should have saved. The computer hub glowed brightly, casting sharp shadows around the figure in between, who slowly raised their arms.

Fuck, my hand was shaking. I wanted to fire, bury them full of lead, but we needed info. “Get on the fucking ground!” I screamed. Randy’s voice crackled in my ears, but I shut it out, because this was it. I was going to get answers and then put this son of a bitch in the ground.

“Better,” the figure said. A man’s voice. 

Right before he ducked hard to the left and the room’s lights flared to nova. I fired, emptying my clip as I vaulted the gurney half blind.

“He’s running out the back!”

“ _V! V fucking stop, he’s set everything to wipe, you need to grab what you can now, get me over there now! River is already out the door!_ ”

River’s voice joined the com, cool and level to my shrieking and Randy’s yelling. “ _I’m all over this asshole babe, get what we need from those drives._ ”  
I raced to the screens, but what I saw stopped me fucking cold.

I knew exactly what this was, even though I watched the program running in reserve, the information flagging and deleting. _Knew_ was actually wrong; I didn’t really understand what I was looking at, not in terms of the lines of code or the way they ran like an ocean over the monitors. I knew it because I’d lived it, and I’d died it. 

I was an engram and I knew when I was looking at the same damn thing, deep in the recesses of my mind, my data, myself. The part of me which had been saved, then reinserted into my body after I died.

Soulkiller. These braindance wreathes were running Soulkiller and turning people into engrams. I raced forward, not sure what I could do, just needing to do _something_ , especially if this deletion included the engram of the boy who just died right in front of me.

I attacked with every hack and counter I had, Randy in the background yelling other suggestions and telling me to just keep looking at everything and recording, all of it happening in seconds, when an electric burst rattled from the computer into my body.

My heart stuttered and stopped, and I collapsed as the world went dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

I woke with a jolt, my lungs on fire and a migraine splitting my skull in half. My heart felt like it was about to explode and I was drenched with sweat. I ripped down the zipper on my suit and cradled my head between my knees, trying to steady myself against the overwhelming scent of burnt electronics.

“V!”

Before I could respond, River slid to his knees beside me, his arms crushing around me. My face in his hands, smoothing my hair back, wiping the sweat from my forehead. “Valerie talk to me. Say something.”

“I’m here,” I mumbled, closed my eyes and nuzzled into his palm. “The fuck happened?”

“Randy thinks it was some sort of trap, the electric burst stopped your heart.” His voice was pinched as he pressed his lips to my forehead, then pulled me tighter against him.

I buried my face in his neck. “Good thing Vik gave me the second one.”

His laugh was more of an exasperated exhale. “Fuck, V, I thought I lost you for a second.”

“Can’t get rid of me that easy.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said, nothing in his tone at ease.

“You got him, right? We got him?” I asked, closing my eyes as he moved through the room, not wanting to see the bodies again. When River didn’t answer me, I jerked my head up and immediately regretted it, pain stabbing behind my eyes. “Fuck…”

River stopped against the stairwell, leaning in so he could check me over again. I caught his hand and squeezed.

“Tell me you got the fucker.”

He didn’t answer me, resumed climbing the stairs. My stomach dropped.

“How the fuck did he get away? Randy said you were on his ass! River. _River_ , fucking answer me!”

“Randy’s monitors said you flatlined.”

“I obviously didn’t. He should have known it was a bug or a glitch from the electric shock. I can’t _believe_ you let that fucker get away from you!”

“I thought _you were dead_!” The words ripped out of his body, his arms crushing around me as he kept climbing the stairs.

“So every time you think I might be hurt you ditch a chase?” I snapped back.

This was ridiculous, after all this, after being so close the fucker got away again. The silence between us was artic as my mind swirled. I shoved against him to try to get down as we rounded up to ground level and he headed toward the exit, but he wouldn’t let me.

“Put me down. I said fucking put me down!”

The anger radiated off him in waves, his arms quaking as he held me. I tried to wiggle free again, then realized he barely held me at all.

My HUD was down. My cyberware, all of it was down.

River kicked the warehouse door open and strode across the parking lot. When Randy saw us, he slumped against our surveillance van with a heavy thud. I’d never see the kid so pale.

“Holy _fuck_ , V, oh thank god.” Randy rubbed his hands over his face. “Thank fucking shit.”

“We’re going to Vik’s,” River said. “You drive.”

“I don’t need to go to Vik’s, for fuck’s sake.” I tried to squirm again, ignoring the way my heart stuttered and my muscles felt disconnected. River deposited me into the van seat, snapping the seatbelt around me.

“We’re going,” he said.

“I don’t get a fucking say?”

The van started up as River climbed in beside me and slammed the door shut. Randy peeled out as he said, “Sure you do V, but you’re outnumbered. We’re going the fuck to Vik’s, right the fuck now.”

I swallowed a few times, leaning back against the seat. When I looked at River, he just stared out into the dark rain as Night City flashed by us. The adrenaline was starting to die back, and my hands shook. My entire body was shaking.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

“Didn’t you promise me you’d be careful?”

I rolled my eyes at Vik, who had his back to me as he keyed his diagnostics screen. River paced in the distance, Misty trying her best to soothe him, but I couldn’t hear the conversation. Randy leaned on the table next to Vik, watching over the ripperdoc’s shoulder.

“Alright run this by me, Randy.”

I opened my mouth to protest – what, now I wasn’t even allowed to tell anyone what happened to me? – but Randy was quicker. 

“First it seemed like maybe an EMP, but she has guards in place for that shit. It was more sophisticated and targeted, like designed to make a show before it burnt through everything. The pulse stopped her heart.” He glanced nervously at me, then at River, then back to Vik as he went on, “Made sure I got the ping that she…that she flatlined before it started tearing through the rest of her augments, and that’s when it finally killed the connection.”

“Isn’t that what the fucking second heart is for?” I snapped.

Vik muttered something under his breath and Randy winced. I heard a door slamming, marking River’s departure. 

“It is the reason you’re alive at all, yes,” Vik finally said. “You’re lucky we installed that elite combat version from Militech.” He settled on his stool and scooted over next to me. “You know how those things actually work?”

“Your heart stops, they kick on and stand in until you get medical attention. Kind of in the name, isn’t it?”

“That’s the basic idea. Normally, a second heart jolts on as soon as there’s distress in your organic heart. Hell, they can activate when you don’t really need them to, and then you’re stuck paying out the ass to prime it again. They also give you added juice when they’re tripped, a good adrenaline burst to get you over the hump of your actual heart stopping. Needless to say, not exactly easy on the body.”

“So what’s the issue?” My head was fucking killing me; I figured I was allowed to be a little short given the situation. “I can feel my heart beating just fine.”  


“Also noticed all your augments are down?”

“Figured you have a fix for that, so why stress.”

“V, fuck.” Randy shook his head. “No wonder River’s about to fucking strangle you. That fucking trap? Whatever it was? It targeted your organic heart, then shut down all your fucking cyberware, which includes second hearts, trauma coverage, everything. The fucking thing was designed to kill you and then prevent any chance a resuscitation.”

When I looked at Vik, he shrugged. 

“He’s right. But your second heart model is for elite operatives, the kind of personal that run into this shit on the regular. Specifically designed for this scenario, actually. It tripped when your heart stopped, and while the trap blocked its primary functions, the model has a subroutine and is insulated against anything except getting physically pulled from your body.” Vik hesitated, but then went on. “You were dead for three minutes, V. That’s the time cushion it leaves before the backup kicks on. Then it shocked your heart to restart it and pumped your veins full of adrenaline.”

I ran my fingers over my chest, my heart fluttering against my ribs. “Three minutes?”

“Yeah,” Randy said quietly. “As soon as you went dark I hacked into the security cameras. It wasn’t weaved into the server deletions, and yeah. Yeah, you were down. The second heart’s backup kicked in right before River got to you.” He wouldn’t look at me. “She’s good though, right Vik? Gonna be fine?”

“Yeah kid, she’ll be fine. Needs a full replacement for the second heart, but hopefully her other cyberware only need hard reboots, but some might require opening them up.” Vik patted my arm. “I can run a full diagnostic tomorrow, first thing.”

“Now.” I hated the tremble in my voice. “Don’t have time to take bed rest, Vik. Fucker is still out there.” 

Randy shook his head and went after River.

“V…” Vik took my hand, gave it a squeeze. “Look, I understand what this case is doing to you, to your whole family, but this is serious shit, kid. You just died from a heart attack, you’re completely zeroed out, dead in the water as far as augments go. You can yell at me all you want, but the only place you need to be right now is at home resting.” 

He shook his head when I started to protest. “I don’t need to be an edgerunnr, a PI, or anything else to know this bastard is going to ground if you came this close to grabbing him. You’ve got a little time. Take it so you’re ready when you need to be. I’ll drop by your place tomorrow, bring all my gear and we’ll get you back on your feet as fast as possible. Trust me, okay? And trust them, too.”

He rolled away on his stool as Randy and River came back inside. River crossed his arms, looking only at Vik. “Good to go?”

“She’s all yours.”

I shoved myself to my feet, ignoring the fact that I wobbled and almost fell, and held a hand out to stop anyone from helping me. I walked myself out of Vik’s shop and to the van parked outside, because I couldn’t handle the idea of being carried again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is such a tease... :}

Before this house of ours, I hadn’t taken a bath since I was kid. In an old trough out in the Badlands and the water had been fucking freezing. Now I rested against the plastic tub in our bathroom, a ridiculous luxury, but damned if the hot water wasn’t a balm to my aching body.

Which was good because the rest about home, most notably River, was frigid. Had been since we left that fucking warehouse. He hadn’t spoken to me since Vik’s, not to Randy either, who watched helplessly as we went inside when we got home. He ran the bath without asking, and I’d been too exhausted to argue with him.

The teenager on the gurney flashed in my mind, that swatch of red light from the BD wreath from Soulkiller, and how his body went empty and limp…

The feeling of my heart stopping in my chest and everything going black…

Waking up to River’s face, looked like he was being torn apart from the inside out…

I put my head on my knees and the sobs started, and they were loud and they hurt and I couldn’t do a fucking thing to stop them. A few seconds later, a familiar hand rested on the back on my neck, River whispering to me and the words didn’t matter. He lifted me from the tub, wrapping me in a towel and taking us to our bed. Dried me off while I wept, then climbed in the bed with me and smothered us both in the sheets and blankets until I finally stopped crying.

He was crushing me and I didn’t care. I needed it and clung to him, my head under his chin, my tears wet on his bare chest. His fingers moved through my hair, his breathing steady, my anchor, my everything.

And those things I’d screamed at him after he came for me…

“At the warehouse,” I whispered. His arms tightened around me. “River, I’m so sorry.”

Something in him melted at the words, a sigh shuddering through him. “I thought I’d lost you. There’s nothing, _nothing_ , that will ever be more important to me than you, do you understand that?”

I closed my eyes, just wanting to be closer to him. “If it had been you, I would have done the same thing. I just…I was…”

“Don’t have to relive all this, not yet. Saw everything you did.”

“He’s using Soulkiller, River.”

“I know. It was the last thing you said before…before you…V…”

He tilted his head back, lips finding mine, the kiss gentle and desperate on the same hand, like he wanted to drink me in and was terrified to break me. Suffocating and euphoric, it broke my heart as much as it surrounded and warmed it. It didn’t last, it couldn’t, it was too raw. He pulled back and pressed his forehead to mine.

“Please, River…” I needed his love and he understood me without saying another word.

This case, this killer, it had been haunting us to the bones. We’d barely touched each other in the last couple weeks, hadn’t been intimate in longer. Not because we didn’t want to, but because we were exhausted, run down and always chasing leads.

I hadn’t realized how desperately I missed him despite how close we always were to each other. 

He rolled on top of me, his knee gently nudging my legs apart, his body pressing against mine. He was so warm, so close, so safe. He kissed me again, his pain and grief on his lips and tongue. I could almost taste what he’d felt when he thought he’d lost me, and when I tried to imagine myself in his place…

He broke the kiss and he buried his face in my neck, his breathing heavy against my skin. His other arm was wrapped around my back and he trembled. His lips brushed my throat again. Hesitating, my gentle soul, because even though we knew each other inside and out, he would never move forward unless he knew I was there with him one hundred percent. 

“Love me, River,” I whispered, cupping his cheek in my palm. “Please.”

He shifted his weight and slipped inside me, both of us drawing a shuddering breath. No moaning, no playing, nothing but each other, together. I felt so weak, so vulnerable with the events of the day, as stripped down and bare as when that ex-corpo finally rebuilt my body in Alaska and I’d made my way home to him more than two years ago. But this was different because there were no ifs, only us.

He made love to me like we shared the same body. Every movement was together, united. We never looked away from each other, never closed our eyes. He caught my hand and held it over his heart as he moved inside me. The way he looked at me was so different from what I normally coveted, but my body ignited for him nonetheless, to pull him deeper, and it was enough for him, too. We said other we loved each other as we lost ourselves together, and then drifted into sleep with our bodies still entangled.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

I sat with a plate of eggs and waffles balanced on my knees, nursing my second mug of coffee and appreciating the full house around me, especially after last night. Team Ward had become quite the thing in two years, beyond just myself and River, and Randy, or even the PI business.

I’d done well for us eddie wise with my gigs in two years, actually obscenely well, but moving from the trailer park was never really an option. In the end we opted to spread our gains and investments around this area on Night City’s fringes. Started with adding our own trailer, then improving Joss’ and Randy’s. We folded Joss in as our accountant a few months after Randy joined the team, and her efforts had spread to a community manager of sorts in the trailer park zone. My gig income also allowed River to take any PI contract with a ‘pay what you can if anything’ going rate.

We got investors to tear down the worst buildings and place better homes, including a small apartment block with fixed rent. The new school we’d built here was fantastic, and we worked with the residents to fill out the commerce area with local workers. 

Probably the most difficult hurdle as we upgraded our lives was talking River into improving the little cyberware he had. Seemed to be part sentimental, part practicality, part just how River had been used to living for so long – putting himself last as he took care of others. I finally convinced him taking care of him was just as important to me after his wrist attachment cracked. In the ended, he’d opted for a top-of-the-line metal hand with full sensory upgrades – sentimental, after all, my husband. Said it would remind him of where he’d come from. His eye replacement was much more streamlined, and I had to admit I enjoyed having him stare into me with two organic eyes now. 

River and I had also expanded our personal home to include an office and extensive resources above for our work, which was where I sat now, watching over the community kitchen that was as much for family as business.

Randy and Joss had come over first thing in the morning. River and I had both been up already, sitting together in the communal space on the second floor, me curled in his lap, not talking, just being. When Randy came in first he muttered “thank fucking god” before heading with his arms full of groceries to the kitchen, Joss on his heels. The kids had school today, so she was happy to come check on us – to fuss over me and to fuss at River because she was his sister – before starting in on a lavish breakfast buffet. 

I’d felt a stab of guilt; I knew we’d left Randy alone last night after the warehouse events, but we’d also known he’d go to Joss and she’d stay up with him for whatever he needed. This morning she was chipper even though she looked exhausted. She was also terrible at hiding the concerned glances in my direction.

At this point, the entire meal was well underway. Vik had arrived with Misty in tow about a half hour earlier. I squinted into the kitchen over my coffee, watching Joss and Vik standing together by the window above the sink. Joss looked radiant in the soft light, Vik laughing along with her and eating from the plate she’d handed him the second he’d arrived.

Misty and Randy had filled their own plates and settled in beside me a few minutes ago, both munching away while they watched the same thing I was, with the same deeply vested interest.

“So,” Randy said with his mouth full. “Last night changes my bet. If you’re so fucked up Vik is going to be making house calls for the next two weeks? Yeah, I’m moving the timeline up to end of the month.”

Misty made a thoughtful sound, chewing and swallowing before she spoke. “That’s a good point. They normally don’t see each other so much.” She cocked her head to the side.

“No cards,” I said. “We all agreed that’s fucking cheating.”

“Yeah it fucking is,” Randy agreed.

“I haven’t run a spread for either of them, relax.” Misty grinned. “I don’t need to anyway. I say…end of the week.”

Randy choked on his waffle. “End of the week? You’ve been the low baller this entire time and now its end of the week? Willing to put your eddies where you mouth is?”

“I’m so sure I’ll double the pot,” Misty said, which left Randy with his mouth gaping open.

“What, you suddenly don’t like our little wager now that someone might actually win?” I asked, grinning around my cup. Randy threw a chunk of waffle at me and I ate it off my shirt. “And it better not take two weeks to get me back up and running. Which means less time at Camp Ward for Vik, so I’m gonna stick with Christmas.”

“Huh, three more months is pretty long, V,” Randy said. “How long have they known each other now? Almost six months? You boned my uncle after, what? Like a week?”

“True love is not measured in time,” I said with my nose up, “you lewd little fuck.”

Randy was choking on his food again, Misty hiding her smirk in her sleeve, when River joined us. He leaned over and picked a bite off my plate. 

“Did I miss anything?”

“Nothing outright,” I said, “but Misty says end of the week now and might have inside info since she wants to up the ante.”

“I do not!” Misty said.

I talked right over her. “Randy is sticking to end of the month. And my bet’s still on some insane gesture at Christmas because I _refuse_ to imagine a scenario where Vik needs to be here babying my ass for two entire fucking weeks.”

River seemed thoughtful as he watched Joss and Vik in the kitchen. They were still smiling and laughing, standing a little closer together now.  


“Hmm. Think Vik is that patient?” He leaned down to kiss my cheek and whispered, “I sure wasn’t.”

I smacked him and laughed. “You Ward boys are un-fucking-believable.” 

River cruised the kitchen to make himself a plate and get coffee, chatting with Joss and Vik for a few minutes as we all watched like vultures, before finally coming over to sit down next to me, our knees touching. All three of us stared at the former detective, waiting for the assessment. He took his time, savoring his coffee like we didn’t need to hear his opinion right now.

“Going on all in. Three more days, tops,” River said, then to Misty he added, “You said you liked this area, right? If Vik ends up moving his shop out here, we could always set up a store front for you, too.”

“I’m confused,” Randy said. “What are betting on again? How long it takes my mom to get laid, or we talking stepdad now?”

Vik set his plate down, giving Joss an adorably awkward wave, and headed our way, ears probably on fire at this point.

“Coms dark,” I hissed out of the side of my mouth, elbowing River when he started laughing. “We’re about to be made, gonks.”

Vik’s cheeks were pink when he reached us, probably because we were all staring at him while pretending we’d been sitting here eating the whole time, nothing else. And for fuck’s sake, if Randy _did not get his shit under control_ he was going to blow this whole operation clean open. He shoveled the rest of the eggs in his mouth as he stood, legitimately giggling as he escaped into the kitchen. 

Vik looked between Misty, who was smiling quite innocently; River, who looked like he’d just swallowed the canary; and myself, who gave him a full-fledged shit eating grin. 

“What?” When we all burst into laughter, Vik pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “You ready for a first pass, V? I’m all set up in the back room.”

“Absolutely.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

By the time Vik was done replacing my second heart – with the same supped up model which saved my life the night before – it was midafternoon. He pumped me full of antibodies and healing stims, with an added cocktail boost to keep me on my feet until nighttime. I made him add the last part, needing to do something besides lay around. We had footage to watch and sort, and we really hadn’t had a chance to go over anything from the warehouse besides the fallout.

“Thanks, Vik,” I said as we moved into the main hallway, passing the kitchen – clean and empty – as I walked him out. 

“No problem, kid. Just try to get some rest.” He hesitated at the door for a moment, then turned and looped me into a one-armed hug. “Gotta take care of yourself, V. This family you’ve built, we need you as much as you need us. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I tried my best to ignore the tightness in my throat, cleared it and few times and said, “Yeah sure. Hopefully we can get Joss to make another great breakfast tomorrow.”

“Not cheating to say that? You know, for the bet you all have going.”

I grinned. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not.”

After he left, I made my way to our main tech hub, which housed all our computers, netrunner gear, and security system for our combined buildings. Randy and River were both inside, my husband walking the room as he chatted on the holo. Randy was absorbed in whatever he was scrolling, his posture tense. All the levity from the morning had evaporated, and as much as we’d all needed a minute to breathe, it was past time to get back to work.

As much as I could. I guess I should have just been thankful our time would be filled with analyzing and planning for now, and I didn’t need to be out in the field. I’d been trying my best to ignore it, but I was trashed.

I gave River’s arm a squeeze as I walked by, and he leaned in for a quick kiss before continuing his call. I sat on Randy’s desk, taking in what I could from the screens and immediately shivered; my footage from the night before. 

“Hey V,” Randy said, slipping off his BD wreath. “How’d it go with Vik?”

“Second heart is replaced, feels like a hundred more things to go. Before you ask, the stims are working their magic and I should be clear headed for a few hours before I need to hit the sack. Who is River talking to?”

“Detective Han. After seeing other victims which weren’t kids in the mix, River wanted to pull him in. I think they’re trying to line up other unsolved body dumps with what we’ve been seeing, including the ones from last night.” Randy shifted in his seat, crossing his arms. “Try to figure out how big this mess is. The NCPD ended up mopping up after we left anyway, so it wasn’t like they wouldn’t be involved now.”

“They playing nicely at least?”

“Surprisingly. River has been nothing but his normal pushy self, but Han thinks we’re on to something big here.” Randy pointed to the screen, scrubbing the video I’d recorded last night towards the end, when I first stood up and saw the screens. “Unfortunately, I think he might be right.”

“It is big,” I said. “Sixteen kids are dead, more we probably don’t know about.”

“Yeah, but before I dropped out of the call Han told River the NPCD has been dealing with an alarming amount of body dumps in the last three months.” Same time frame as our case, Randy didn’t need to add. “They’ve got more than three hundred unsolved incidents.”

“Three _hundred_?”

“Same as our kids, nothing in common besides having nothing in common, and the deaths seem natural, you know, aside from the fact they’ve been obviously dumped. All walks of life, all ages, all ethnicities. But I think I’ve got something to start with here.” Randy pointed to one of the smaller monitors on the video, only partially blocked by the shadow – the man who was responsible for all this. “See that?” 

He zoomed in a bit. I squinted. “Playhouse? Looks like a darknet hub.”

“It is, but not one I’ve heard of before. And whatever it is, that’s the back end. The hosting side.”

River said goodbye to Han, stepped over to join us. “He’s gonna zip us over what he’ got. Gonna go ahead and send our lists over to him, too.”

“Sure that’s wise?” I asked.

“Just the names and dates.” River gestured to the screens. “What am I looking at right now?” Randy filled him in. “Alright well, V your contacts would probably be the most likely avenue for a darknet jaunt. In the meantime, I need to make a few more calls. That boy at the warehouse was on our missing list so I need to contact his parents.”

I winced, finding his hand and lacing our fingers together. He gave a gentle squeeze.

“I’ll keep on this,” Randy said. “Gonna take me hours to make a full first pass on the footage, especially analyzing the purge at the end to see if we can scrape up anything worthwhile.”

“Want another set of eyes? I have a few people I can tap,” I offered. 

Randy watched the screens for a few minutes before he nodded. “Yeah, I think that might be a good idea. Feel like time is ticking, you know?”

“Agreed,” River said. “You both good for now? Gonna step outside for the next call, get some air.”

“I’m good. Like I told Randy the stims should give me a few hours before I need to bag out for the night. Go ahead, River.”

He kissed the back of my hand and then let go, disappearing into the connecting room.

“This is fucked, V, it feels really bad like…like Peter Pan bad, but worse.”

I walked over and draped my arms over his shoulders, giving him a hug he couldn’t protest. He didn’t, just grabbing my arms and holding on for a minute. “Good thing we’re on the case then, because we figured it out last time and we’ll do it again.”

“Damn right, Auntie V.” 

I laughed softly and ruffled his hair. “Remember to blink occasionally. Any preference for who I call in?”

“There’s that one girl who helped with then Cortez case. I mean woman. Uh, Hanna? She was helpful last time.”

I perked a brow, but he didn’t dare turn around. “Hanna. About 5’2. Pink hair, too many earrings, lots of freckles?” I grinned as I added, “Nice ass?”

“Getting late for you to get all those calls in before your bedtime.”

“Mhm, sure is. Do I need to set up a new betting pool while I’m on the phone?”

“With all due respect? Fuck you, Auntie V.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short transition chapter before a very long chapter next time! <3

Waiting had never been my strong suit. In fact, patience and I really didn’t get along. At all. So here I was, a week and half later, about ready to punch something. Anything.

Thank fuck we finally had some ends meet today. Vik was in the process of finishing my last cyberware repairs when my holo pinged. “I can take this?”

“Go ahead, but you mind popping it up so I can listen in?”

“You got some detective skills I don’t know about?”

“Not really, but I’ve been around enough to be invested at this point. All bits I’ve gathered from you guys? This is messed up, V.” Vik sighed as he kept working. 

“Yeah,” I said quietly, and swiped the call up on his screen.

Randy’s face filled the call, his expression a mix of apprehension and excitement. “We finally got it. Rogue sent the darknet link-in over to our decoy net about twenty minutes ago. I just finished running through the dummy account hoops and the code worked. We’ve got premium access to Playhouse and all its services.” 

He hesitated.

“What is it?”

“Let’s just say the menu is extensive,” he said. “How long until you guys are done back there?”

I glanced at Vik, who answered, “Running a final diagnostic and she’s good to go.” To me, he added, “Your ankle mods will be sore for a few days, but the stims should ease the discomfort. Skip the big jumps unless you absolutely have to for at least another twenty-four hours.”

“Sounds good. Be there in five, Randy.”

He nodded and closed the call. I could barely sit still as Vik’s software plugged along at a snail’s pace to finish up. 

“Alright, alright, go.”

I jumped up, wincing at the ache in my ankles. I was almost to the door when I wheeled back around. “River won, by the way. All 3500 eddies, total. You staying for dinner again?”

Vik sighed, again, which made me grin. “I am. Joss said something about jambalaya earlier.” 

“Preem,” I said, waiting for him to offer up anything else, but the man refused to turn around, so I finally left. We all enjoyed the gift it was to see him and Joss happy together, because damn they both deserved it so much. And I smiled while I could, hugging myself as I walked from our infirmary toward the tech hub, because I was pretty sure whatever came next was going to be a bitch.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ho ho ho, here comes the smut! :) And plot!

I slide down the wall, settling on the floor. River and Randy were both silent. After a few minutes, Randy closed the Playhouse access and powered down the equipment. It was dinner time anyway. Joss had pinged us about half an hour ago, but I wasn’t hungry at all and I was pretty sure neither were they.

“I need a walk,” Randy said. “Might head down the street and grab a beer.”

“Want company?” River offered immediately.

“Nah, but thanks. I won’t be long, I just…need a few minutes by myself, I think.”

I closed my eyes and rested my head back against the wall, knew Randy’s hand when he gave my shoulder a squeeze before he left us alone. Silence hovered, and I was having trouble focusing on anything until I had an idea. I jumped to my feet and River mirrored me.

“What’s up?”

“Gym. Need to fucking punch something.”

“Let’s do it.”

We headed across down the hallway, the gym tucked in the backside of the trailer’s second floor – though with all the editions it was pretty stupid to keep calling our building a trailer at this point. The doors swished open as we approached, exercise equipment strewn around the perimeter, including a shared wall with the armory next door covered in various melee weapons, among them wooden and foam trainers. The room’s center was an open sparring floor, two punching bags hanging in opposite corners of the elongated oval.

All I was wearing was a pair of exercise shorts and one of River’s tanks, which had given Vik clean access to legs and ankles for his cyberware work earlier this afternoon. I was barefoot, so I walked right onto the floor toward the closest punching bag and the rack of gloves and tape next to it. While River changed into a pair of sweat pants and ditched his shoes, I worked on wrapping my hands like Vik had taught us. I tried to think of his lectures on boxing and proper technique and his continued exasperation at how chaotic of a hand-to-hand fighter I was, but nothing short of murdering the fucker behind Playhouse was going to ease my mind at this point.

River joined me as I finished wrapping my left hand, grabbed my right and started wrapping it before I could protest. “One condition.”

“Can’t I just beat the shit out of something for a few minutes?”

“You know that’s not going to help, not by itself. Talk me through it while we do this. I need to process things, too.”

“Fine.” I pulled my hand from him to finish the wrapping myself. “But these bags are only going to work for so long.”

I walked over to the closer one and punched with everything I had, augments ramped to full, and the chain rattled as the bag swung high and smashed into the ceiling, crushing the tiles and sending debris everywhere. The bag jerked as it dropped and I laid into it a second time when it swung back my way. The chain groaned and snapped, the bag crashing like a body to the floor.

“Fuck,” I muttered. Took a deep breath and lowered my augments down about fifty percent and headed across the room to the second bag.

“Make that one last longer,” River called after me.

After a few minutes of me beating into the leather, I was sweating and my muscles were getting warm. I fell back a few steps as River walked around to brace the bag for me.

“Guessing we’re putting the same pieces together,” he prompted, then nodded he was ready for me to attack.

I punched twice, enjoying the push back from his weight against the bag, then slammed my knee into it with a grunt. 

“Playhouse is mocked to look like a digital projection dump, one of those shitty VR sites assholes can hook into and do whatever they want to the models inside, no consequences and no morals needed since the software isn’t considered sentient. People know better than to put real AIs in.” I ducked and weaved, laid into the bag a few more times “Except we fucking know it isn’t a projection vault.”

I drew a shaking breath, my ankles protesting all the motion. I slugged the bag with a particular hard roundhouse punch, drawing a grunt from River, then stepped off to the side to grab a drink of water and a second stim hit.

When I turned back around, River had moved away from the bag to the sparring ring’s middle. I dialed my augments back to about twenty-five percent. I didn’t want to hurt him accidentally, but I needed to fight.

I stalked up to him and threw the first punch, which he countered with a hard slap on my forearm, his guard up and tight. Set a zing through my blood, the physicality of it, of action instead of staring at a computer screen.

“They’re not fucking projections. Playhouse is filled with fucking engrams.”

I launched into a sloppy combo, and River was on top of me until I went low and dirty with a knee to the gut. He caught my leg after I connected, dropped my ass to the mat. I wanted to scream at him, but I only growled as he stepped back, arms up again. His expression was neutral, but I could smell the same rage about to boil over in him, too. I climbed slowly to my feet, not using the ankle mods to spring up least I’d end up back in Vik’s ripperdoc chair after I was finally cleared. But as soon as I was up, I went on the offensive again.

“Fucking. Engrams.” I punctuated each word with a wild swing. Good thing we sparred often and River knew most of my general patterns pretty well by now, because I was sure I would have already decked him if he didn’t. I couldn’t pull myself back. “A fucking engram prison, except worse than Mikoshi because instead of just being fucking asleep, these people are being tortured.”

I ended with another kick and guttural growl, which River blocked and didn’t counter this time, instead peeling back out of reach. 

“Don’t do that,” I snapped at him. “Come at me like you fucking mean it.”

River advanced as he spoke. “Looks like they’re all in the same place, based on the Playhouse’s service list crossed reference with the information Han sent over. Which means for now we’re only dealing with one vault, one access point, if we can take any good news from today.”

He was more predictable than me, his combos always following traditional patterns, but he didn’t hold back on his swings. When he said ‘good news’ it broke my concentration and when I glared at him, he landed an uppercut to my gut.

The air whooshed out of me and I staggered back, leaning on my knees for a minute. He didn’t rush in to comfort me, didn’t come anywhere near my reach. When I got my wind back, I spit between us. 

“Good news.” I didn’t hide the bile from my voice.

“We’ve talked about this, V. You’ve gotta take good news when you get it, because it can be few and far between in the work we do. More good news is that Randy’s said the project is still in beta, and the traffic is really low. Part of why it took so long for Rogue to dig up a back channel in. Means the engrams aren’t being accessed often.”

“Not yet.” And I launched at him again, and then we were brawling. “And how long, huh? How long before every fucking person in there is being raped and tortured and murdered, over and over and over again?”

I feigned and caught him flat, my fist catching him in the jaw. Watching his head snap to the side stole a bit of the fire from me. 

I threw my hands up and stepped back. “Okay?”

“Fine,” he said, hands back up after he rubbed his jaw. “And Playhouse isn’t getting out of beta because we’re going to burn it to the ground.”

The rasp in his voice, the anger there; I knew he understood, knew he was fully here with me, because hey, I might be his wife but I was a fucking engram, too. He understood. The people in the Playhouse weren’t just data files, code or zeroes and ones. They were alive, like me.

I swayed a little on my feet. River closed the gap between us, his arms crushing around me so hard it hurt to breath, and I held on, my head pressing on his shoulder. 

“How the fuck did Soulkiller get loose in the wild?” I whispered.

“No idea,” River said. “We’ll figure it out and shut that shit down, too.”

“I’m just…I’m so fucking angry, River, I can’t even fucking think. All I can imagine is…” I drew a shuddering breath. “When I was with Alt and Johnny, after she used Soulkiller on me? It was real, felt like I was physically there. I could feel everything. My mind was fully aware and awake. Sure, it was over saturated and the color was fucked up, but it was real.

“When Randy logged in, those preview screens…Whatever architecture the fucker created, it looks real, too. And all those engrams, those people who just died, who were murdered, who have no idea what the fuck happened, are trapped in those rooms. And then some twisted fuck is going to come in and…and… _Fuck River_ , some of them are kids. One of them was fucking five years old!”

I pushed back from him. 

“More,” I barked, hands back up, and he obliged. We sparred for about another ten minutes, but it wasn’t fucking helping.

“ _Fuck_!” I yelled again, running my hands through my hair. “This isn’t enough! I just want…I just need to fucking do something! I need to get this shit under control!”

“Then tell me your plan,” he said, his breathing labored as he walked from the mat to grab a towel.

“Plan? Fuck, River, I don’t know what the fuck—”

“Bullshit,” he said, striding back over and tossing the towel at my face. I caught it and scowled at him, but he only crossed his arms. “That is complete bullshit and you know it. Maybe you don’t have every detail worked out, but I know you have a plan, V. Tell me what you’re going to do about this.”

I mopped off my face, patted my arms and my chest off. He was right. I wasn’t some helpless lamb. “I’m going to loop in every fucking fixer in Night City, call it whatever favors it takes to get their asses on board, and we’re going to root this shit out.”

“And?”

“Use the fixers to help us find wherever they’re physically storing the engrams and bust them free.”

He moved closer, giving me a nod of approval as he grabbed one of my hands and made quick work of removing the tape. “And?”

“Then we’re going to burn Playhouse to the ground, and I’m going fucking execute the son of a bitch who made it.”

“That’s more like it,” River said as he finished removing the tape from my other hand before pulling me into a rough hug, his chin resting against the top of my head. He was right, it felt good to say it aloud, to have a plan brewing even if it was barely an outline. It did make it feel a little more possible, a little less unreachable.

“You still feel like you’re about to explode.” He squeezed the back of my neck. “What do you need, babe?”

“I don’t know,” I exhaled the words, the frustration still radiating through every inch of me. “I just…I just feel…”

“Like everything is out of control?”

“I…yes.”

His fingers caught my chin, titled my head back to look up at him. “Then why don’t you take some back.”

I stared at him, my brain taking a few seconds to catch up. He raised a brow, letting my chin go, putting the ball completely in my court. 

Well, fighting wasn’t the only way to blow off some steam.

I grabbed the front of his tank in both fists and crashed my mouth into his, the kiss hungry and messy and he was entirely there for it – except for the fact that I was slowly walking him backwards to keep the kiss going.   
That was when my brain caught up and I realized exactly what he’d meant about control. 

We were still on the sparring mat, so I broke the kiss and hooked my heel behind his and dropped him flat on his back. I climbed on top of him before he could catch his breath, and when his hands naturally reached for me, I pinned them to the mat at his shoulders. My chest heaved, my grin all teeth as I felt my augments overpowering him, and I squeezed tighter.

His grunt sounded painful. 

I’d already punched him the damn face, now I was about to break his wrists? I let go, sitting upright and dropping my augments low; when had I amped them back up? I hadn’t even noticed.

“Shit, River, I’m sorry. This is bad idea.”

He caught both my thighs when I tried to get off him, then reached up to gently trace along my jaw. “I trust you. Completely.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, well, I’m not sure I trust myself.”

He smiled, caught my chin again. “Then trust me. Trust that I will tell you to stop if I want you to. Same trust you always give me, V.” He brought my hand to his lips, kissed my palm, then placed it on his opposite wrist. 

Made my pulse jump a bit. I was still straddling him and could feel his growing arousal through the sweat pants. Suddenly I wasn’t thinking about anything but him – and the adrenaline I needed to burn off. I licked my lips, holding his gaze, giving him a chance to change his mind, but he only nodded once, and then waited.

I shifted my hips slightly and was immediately rewarded with another grunt, and the hand I wasn’t pinning down reached for me. I caught his wrist, setting my augments around sixty-five percent, the number we’d discovered put us about even strength wise after a really ridiculous and drawn-out arm-wrestling match last year. I hesitated, then bumped them to seventy. And squeezed.

He gave me that grunt again, shifting under my body, the edge to the sound softer, which shook my apprehension loose a bit. Because I did trust him. Completely.

I rolled my hips a few times, grinding against him through my shorts and his pants, and while he fought to keep his expression neutral, his efforts only went so far. My husband had never been good at hiding when he wanted me. I leaned down and kissed him, lazily catching his lip between my teeth and nibbling before I let go and stood up.

“Clothes off, Ward. And stay on the mat while you strip.”

He blinked once, then said, “Yes Ma’am.” 

The tank top ripped over his head, then he wrestled out of his pants and underwear, tossing it all aside into a messy pile. Leaned back on his elbows when I didn’t move, only drank him in, all laid out naked and aroused in front of me, his body still damp with sweat from our sparring match.

I tapped my chest with a single finger. “You want me to take this off?”

“Mhm.”

I swallowed, finding myself hesitant in saying what bounced around in my mind. I blew out a hot breath, deciding in a rush to run with the moment. “Then I want to you fuck yourself while you watch me.”

The sharp exhale that snapped out of him sent a jolt through my middle. The way his gaze hooded and his jaw tightened, I could see the conflicting desires warring across his features. 

Sure, there were nights I’d tease him, steal a little control in the bedroom to get him riled up. Mostly for my own benefit because whenever he took control back from me, oh did I pay for it the most amazing ways.

This was different, but he’d already given me this and my man wasn’t one to go back on his word.

I could see him grinding his molars as he lowered a hand to touch himself, propping up on one elbow as he did. I watched the way he squeezed, appreciating how long each stroke was and what that was going to mean for me later. But I made him wait while I watched him, my fingers playing with the shirt at my waist line, lifting it a bit so he could see my hips and stomach. 

I took in the way his throat worked as I slowly lifted the shirt more, high enough to reveal the bottom curves of my breasts before stopping. Lingering. Noting how he pumped his fist a little faster for a few breathes before ramping himself down again. I slipped the tank over my head, dropped it at my feet.

The way his eyes ran over my body made my pulse quicken and I grinned; I couldn’t help it. The idea this was all about _me_ driving _him_ crazy? What a joke. I was fucking helpless when it came to him. 

I dropped my shorts in one motion, no warning, leaving myself in only my plain black underwear, and he let out a short groan. I could see him twitch in his fist and I shivered. Slipped a hand down the front, running a finger along my slick slit as I stood in front of him. Used my other hand to pinch one of my nipples, rolling it between my fingers.

“Fuck,” he muttered. 

“Don’t stop,” I said, “but you better not come, either.”

I walked closer to him, earning another small grunt as he struggled to keep his strokes slow. I eyed his length, not even hiding what I wanted to do with it from my expression, moving my finger in small circles around my clit as I let myself imagine him inside me for a few seconds, let a small moan slip past my lips. 

“V.” River growled my name, and it pulled my attention. Maybe I shouldn’t have looked at him; it just made me wetter, made the desire to set him loose on me climb, but I wrestled down the urge. Barely.

Tugged my underwear down to my ankles instead and stepped out of them, moving closer to him as I did, still lazily touching myself. Ran my foot along his calf as I stepped between his legs, spreading my own enough to give him a clear view of my fingers as I slowly slid one into myself and let out a small gasp, just for him.

His head dropped back, his hand stalling and he didn’t make a sound. 

“I don’t remember telling you to stop watching? To stop stroking?” I whispered, my voice catching more than I wanted it to, this dominance I was borrowing euphoric as much as it was fragile. 

But the moan he gifted me with when he started moving his fist again, as he lifted his head to look at me? When his eyes entirely fixated on my fingers, I rewarded us both by slipping a second one inside, and he muttered a few colorful curses and moaned again. 

Well, now all I wanted more of those sounds from him. 

I stopped and lowered myself down, catching his hand to end his movements, the sound he gave me a mix of frustration and anticipation as his head fell back and he closed his eyes. I moved both his arms so his hands rested above his head, my nipples brushing my chest as I did, my lips touching his ear as I whispered, “Stay.”

I released his arms and positioned myself on top of him so I could run my slit along his length, ever so gently gliding back and forth. His hands clenched into fists, but he kept them where he was told, and he still didn’t look at me. 

The power in the way he remained entirely still because I’d told him to? Fuck, it made me tremble as I kept grinding against him, the tingling in my center already absurd. I honestly didn’t know how he kept himself together sometimes when we had sex, but I was starting to taste the idea. 

“Look at me, Ward.”

He didn’t make a sound aside from another long exhale as he lifted his head, his stare drilling into me and making my breath catch again – but I didn’t want to surrender to him, not yet. I lifted myself up, taking him in my hand and lining him up before lowering myself around him. He was _so_ fucking _hard_ ; I closed my eyes and moaned as he filled me. 

His entire body twitched a few times, and when I opened my eyes, he watched me as instructed, the muscles in his arms complete locked up, the tension about to tear him apart. I bit my lip as I sat tall, fingers back on my clit. 

“Don’t take your eyes off me. I want—" My breathing hitched as I rolled my hips once, my focus faltering with the single movement. _Not yet, V. Keep it together._ I took a deep steadying breath, trying to ignore the flush rushing over my neck and cheeks when I said, “I want you grab my ass while I fuck myself on you until I come.”

His hands flew up, grabbing me so hard I let a startled groan slip, his fingers digging into my skin. I moved my fingers a little faster, started a rolling pace with my hips, but fuck, he felt so fucking good, all I could do was revel in him because I was already starting to climb. 

“Fuck…I…fuck…” My words stumbled again, and I found his eyes, and the look he gave me made me gasp, made me push. 

“Don’t you dare come until I’m done with you,” I rushed out the words, riding him harder, reaching up to squeeze my breast with my free hand and letting another long groan slip out.

“And don’t you dare close your eyes,” I whispered, holding that look because it was destroying me, and I drove him deeper and deeper into me with each rise and fall of my hips, staring into him as I felt myself crashing around him, my motions going jerky and out of control as the orgasm rocked me. I didn’t hold back, crying out his name as I tightened around him again and again until the waves finally petered out and left me breathless.

I leaned back a little, still firmly seated on him since he’d remained where I’d put him. I could feel him throbbing inside me as I propped myself up with one hand on his thigh, his hands still firmly gripping my ass. Took a few seconds to catch my breath, all the while enjoying how tight I felt around him, knowing how it must be driving him absolutely fucking insane to continue being still after I’d just come with him inside me.

I finally looked at him again, almost regretting it because now that I’d climaxed the aggression I’d been wrestling with had uncoiled a bit. My pulse immediately jumped in response, and the patience in his expression would have been terrifying in any other scenario.

My hand shook a little as I reached for him with my slick fingers, hovering them above his lips. I swallowed a few times, because I was losing the control he’d given me. I was _rapidly_ losing my hold on it, felt it crumbling to fucking dust, but I somehow managed to whisper, “Taste me.”

He let go of me long enough to catch my wrist in one hand and jolt himself to a sitting position with the other, our bodies still connected. I realized belatedly I hadn’t been specific about how to carry out my direction, as he brought my fingers to his lips, kissing them at first before his tongue was swirling around each in turn, drinking me from my skin. Lingering for longer around his name tattooed on my ring finger. I drew a shuddering breath as he slipped the last finger from his lips.

And he just stared at me, waiting, his thumb tracing along the inside of my wrist. I could barely hear anything, my heart raced so, so loudly, and I felt my pulse flickering under his thumb. And he still waited. 

_Fuck…_

I tapped my augments under fifty percent. “I’m yours.”

My back was on the mat before I even realized what happened, his metal hand on my throat and the other pinning one arm, our bodies still connected and pressed hip to hip. The noise that escaped me was a whimper more than anything else, and the smirk turning his lips made me immediately repeat the sound.

He gave me a rumbling chuckle as his lips brushed mine, then kissed along my jaw until his breath tickled my ear. “Every time I try to decide what I love most about you, you do something new to drive me,” he said with a firm thrust, “completely,” and another, “fucking,” and another, “crazy.”

“That…so?” I somehow managed. 

“Mhmm.” His lips hummed against my neck as he drew himself almost completely out of me, only to slide all the way in again, his weight crushing down as he buried himself in me. 

I could barely breath in the best sense of the idea. He let go of my wrist to throw my leg over his hip, finding more depth somehow. Then his hand crept between us, his thumb grinding against my clit.

“Watching you try to control me while you can barely control yourself? Might have been the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” His teeth caught my throat, his hand squeezing beside his mouth. My head swam little at the pressure, at the growl underpinning his words, at the fresh tingles radiating out from my core. “Thought I was going mess to it all up and come as soon as you put me inside you.”

I could only moan in reply.

“But how could I do that when you told me not to? How could I do anything but what you want from me, what you need from me?” River started moving, each thrust firm and controlled. He gave another squeeze on my throat, before releasing the pressure, his hand trailing down to squeeze my breast instead, tugging at my nipple. “My wife need to come again?”

“ _Fuck_ , I… _please_ , yes,” I whined out the words, _begging_ him. I didn’t understand how he was in control of himself right now, how he managed to fuck me and drive me over the edge after how much I’d teased and tortured him already, and I threw my head back when he made me come around him after only a few seconds of effort, my entire body quaking.

“There you go, beautiful,” he said, the heat in his voice unbearable as he kept moving. “Question is, are you gonna let me come now, Valerie?”

His pace didn’t quicken, but each time him stroked into me with force, I clenched around him instinctually, and I could hear the groans threatening to overtake his words. 

“Yes,” I breathed. 

“Then tell me,” he growled against my ear, his pace picking up now, his entire body taunt and drawn. “Tell me that’s what you want. Tell me that’s what you _need_ , babe, all you need.”

“All I need. I need you to come for me, Ward,” I managed, which drew a laughing groan from him for calling him Ward again, before he unleashed and attacked me, and when he came, _fuck_. After all that, when he came, he gasped he loved me before he buried his face in my hair melted against me.

Then he was kissing me, tender and slow before he gradually slipped himself free and cleaned us both with his discarded shirt, the gym air cool once we’d stopped thrashing around one way or another. He scooped me up and stood, cradling me to his chest.

I nuzzled against him, my sighs bone deep as he carried us to our bedroom. Once we settled in exhaustion reared up, and I wished the entire world could be this moment. The softness of it, the total certainty that whatever faced tomorrow, we’d face it together.

River wrapped himself around me, his sigh echoing my own, and we both drifted off. My sleep was dreamless and warm, exactly what I needed.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

The alarm system jolted me out of sleep. I crouched naked by the nightstand in a heartbeat, palm print opening the lockbox hidden inside. I grabbed Crash, loaded it, and was already creeping naked out of the room. River moved as well, a glance over showed him checking the feeds as I pressed myself beside our bedroom wall at the door, waiting for his word.

“What the fuck?” He mumbled, then started throwing on his clothes. “It’s Joss and the kids, but I have no idea what she didn’t use the code.”

“Nothing else?” I checked my HUD; a little after 3am. 

“Not that I can see. Here,” he said. I caught the t-shirt he tossed me, wrestling it over my head. “Right behind you.”

I ran down the stairs as River cooled the alarm and reset the automatic lockdown, at the front door in under thirty seconds. I swung it open, keeping Crash low behind my thigh.

“Joss? What’s going on?”

She spun, holding Monique’s hand in one fist, her other clutching Dorian’s shoulder. I could tell she’d been crying, but she was doing her best to keep calm face in front of the kids. Across the path Randy’s trailer door swung open and he jogged over barefoot. 

When Joss didn’t do anything but look at me, her expression helpless, I tried my best to sound absurdly chipper. “This a late-night hot chocolate raid? Again?!”

Both the kids screamed and almost trampled me to get inside. I shot River a quick text as they pounded up the stairs, and I heard him yelling about mounting a hot chocolate defensive maneuver against the siege, followed by more squealing as they all ran to the upstairs kitchen.

Randy vaulted up on the patio, grabbed his mom in a tight hug without a word, and Joss leaned into him. He pulled back first. “Let’s get inside?”

I moved out of the way to let them pass as Joss finally spoke. “There’s a package. It’s still on my porch. I just…I’m sorry, I panicked and I messed up the code trying to put it in and…”

“Hey, no worries.” I glanced at Randy, silently asking if he was good and he nodded. “I got it, you fill Randy in and I’ll be right back.”

I dipped outside, the night humid and cool, felt like a storm about to break. As I inched my way the few feet to Joss’ trailer, I scanned the area, everything as it should be except for a small box in her porch table. Pinged our camera system, quickly cycling the feeds, but it showed no one else up and about in our local neighborhood except a few locals still hanging around inside the bar.

I still moved in a low crouch, Crash cocked and ready for anything. Stepped into the patio light, shivering at how the box was tossed across the table, half open, before whatever Joss saw sent in her into a panic. A scan showed nothing alarming; no trace of explosives or anything else, so I nudged the lid off with Crash.

A BD wreath. Nothing special about it, a typical model one could pick up anywhere around town. 

A printed picture of Monique and Dorian playing just outside their house, probably taken by a drone, zoomed nice and close on their laughing faces. 

And square of digital card stock, with colorful font and blinking hologram balloons.

**Congratulations! You’re both invited to the Playhouse!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

“I appreciate this,” I said to Dakota. We stood outside her garage about twenty yards away from the rest of the group. “Give me a few minutes to say goodbye, then we can talk about the biz I’ve got coming to you.”

“Of course, sister,” she said. She rested a hand on my shoulder. “Anything I can do, I will. I’ll wait inside.”

“Thanks,” I said, rallying a smile I didn’t feel. Once she left, I turned my attention the gathering in the parking lot. It was a feat, pulling all the pieces together with dawn just peaking over the hills, and we’d decided it would be best to meet outside the Aldecadoes camp, just in case.

Panam talked to River, both of their expressions grim. Joss stood nearby, Viktor with his arm around her shoulder as they watched Monique and Dorian running around with Mink, Dutch and Harry, three of the Aldecado kids they’d befriended over the course of our many visits. Randy had joined them for even teams in what looked like a pretty intense round of _Trouble in Heywood_.

I walked over to my Delamain cab parked a few spots away from the clustered nomad vehicles. “Hey, Excelsior.”

“Hello, V.” The cab chirped.

“Everything good to go on your end?”

“Yes, V. Full access to all services has been extended to Joss Kutcher, Monique Kutcher, Dorian Kutcher, and Panam Palmer.”

“And the GPS blocker?”

“Installed and fully functional.”

“Take care of them, alright?”

“It is my pleasure, V.”

As I joined the rest, Panam and River finished up their conversation. River gathered Joss into a crushing hug, and she pulled back to wipe her eyes when I walked up. 

“I will not hear anything about how thankful you are, how much this means, none of it,” Panam said as she gave me a quick and firm hug. “And besides, we’ve been talking about picking up camp for a few days now, so the timing is perfect.”

“Still gonna tell you thanks,” I said. “Can’t stop me.”

She grinned at me. “Fine, then you can thank me by taking an extended vacation at the camp when all this said and done, with everyone.”

“Sounds preem.”

“Good. We should get moving before full light. I will move any necessary contact through Dakota as a proxy, but the whole camp will go dark for a few days while we’re in transit.”

“Best if we don’t know where you are,” River said.

“I know. And don’t worry,” Panam said as she walked backwards with her arms open. “We might not be blood, but this is family. Let me tell the kids they need to wrap up.”

She left us, and after Vik gave Joss and quick kiss goodbye he retreated as well, leaving River, Joss and myself standing in the parking lot.

“I don’t want to know anything more than I already do,” Joss said, her voice quaking. “Just promise me you’ll get this bastard so we can come home.”

“I promise, Joss.” I took her hand, then she crushed me in a hug. “Let me know if Panam gives you any shit.”

She laughed, the sound strained. “We’ll be fine. The kids are beside themselves. They think this is some kind of surprise vacation.”

“Good,” River said, his smile not reaching his eyes. “Take care, we’ll see you soon. Love ya, sis.”

“You too, River.”

Everyone lingered for a few more minutes, Randy joining us after they ended the AR game. As we watched them drive away, my fists tightened. Both River and Randy stood with their arms crossed on either side of me as dawn broke over the horizon.

“Gonk has no idea who he’s fucking with,” Randy said quietly.

“Time we showed him,” I said.

“Damn right,” River agreed.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot AND smut! :D

_“Twinkle Toes!”_ Dino said by way of greeting.

I rolled my eyes, only half meaning it. “You keep calling me that, I keep telling you how much I hate it every time we talk.”

 _“I’m sure you hate it much as you hate all the eddies being Twinkle Toes gets you.”_ He grinned on the holo, then sobered up. _“I wanted to tap in before this got rolling. I’ve been through everything you sent over and I’m in, whatever we need to do to get this trash closed down. But I had a question for you.”_

“Fire away.”

_“So this meeting, I know you’ve called all the big fixers in. You sure Wakako should be in on this?”_

I paused my pacing of our tech hub, leaning against the wall next to the picture window. Dino was one of my favorite fixers to work with, and this was one of the reasons why. He didn’t make enemies, but he didn’t largely ignore other fixers, either. He kept is ear to the ground in more ways than one.

And it wasn’t exactly a secret Wakako and I didn’t have the best relationship. All that shit with Evelyn and Fingers, well, sometimes biz wasn’t just biz. I might have been able to work around it if she’d shown some shred of remorse, anything at all, but the woman was a cold shark and I’d been stupid to believe we’d held some sort of rapport beyond biz. 

So I’d made my stance clear the best way I could: I’d stopped calling her, stopped taking everything she put on her radar – but I knew better than to snub her completely. Now she only called me when she had a really sensitive gig which fit my skills and paid really fucking well, and I made sure I found the time and did a clean job for her. And she kept her sketchier shit off my deck completely. 

But she also was one of the few fixers who’d dug in with Arasaka in any real way, which meant she might have an idea about how Soulkiller leaked. That and she had the best reputation – or worst, depending how one looked at it, like I did – for the really down and dirty shit a lot of other fixers walked away from. 

The truth was, it had already crossed my mind she might be involved in this mess on some level, and inviting her to my little fixer meet could tip info to whoever was behind Playhouse. On the other hand, leaving her out might be considered a bad enough snub she’d start working against my efforts on principal even if she didn’t have a horse in the race already. 

“I think you know damn well I can’t cut her out without consequences, but my radar is up, believe me.”

Dino nodded over the holo. _“Preem. I’ve started a bit of the work we talked about, getting in some dummy clients so we have more access accounts to work with. Should give us more ways to track Playhouse’s progress, and once word gets around, the creepy fuckers who are actually looking to buy in hopefully come falling right in my lap.”_

“I appreciate this, Dino. I know you’re risking your cred.”

_“Hey, this city is a shithole, but it’s our shithole, and there has to be a fucking line somewhere. We might as well be the ones to draw it, feel me? If we can get the other fixers on board, maybe have them refuse to touch Playhouse, might send a good message and drive more leads my way.”_

“Good. I’ll see you in a few for the con call.”

_“I’d say you should consider becoming a fixer on your own, but I guess being married to one is about the same thing – and it keeps those Twinkle Toes free. Later, V.”_

The holo closed, and a few minutes later River came in with a coffee in each hand.

“Thanks,” I said, taking mine and sipping. “Dino called you a fixer, by the way. Not the first time he’s said it, either.”

River sat on the desk next to me, looping his arm around my waist, and I snuggled into him. “Can I really be a fixer if I only fix one kind of thing?”

“If you’re good at it, why not? Honestly, your rep has really been gaining steam this last year. At this point, Regina, Dino and Rogue all forward any gigs involving missing kids directly to us, without the normal finders’ cut most of the time. Though nowadays you get most of the cases directly anyway.”

“Hmm. Maybe I should send them fruit baskets or something.”

I laughed. “You’re such a dork.”

“And I think my rep has as much to do with you as me.”

“Well, I am pretty amazing.”

“Mhm.” His hand slid down to give my ass a squeeze.

“Keep that up and I might have to punch you in the face again, you know, given where it led last time.”

“I’m not sure you could handle a repeat of last night.” The look he gave me was unapologetic and downright evil. And he was also right.

I glared at him anyway on principle. “Believe me, I’d much rather be ripping your clothes off than trying to get all Night City’s fixers to work together for once in their fucking lives.”

“Just tell them they have to or you’ll stop taking their gigs. You talk about reputation? Babe, yours is way bigger than mine.”

“Here’s hoping that’s worth something.”

About fifteen minutes later, River and I sat at center console in the tech hub, with Night City’s finest filling out the screen in neat little boxes. Regina, Dakota, Rogue, Dino, Mr. Hands, El Capitan, and Padre. Wakako joined us about five minutes after the starting time, and didn’t say anything when she entered the call. I didn’t waste any time, giving them the basic rundown of the city’s newest fucking problem.  


Rogue, Dakota and Dino didn’t have much to add, all of them already looped in one way or another. Padre asked for confirmation the warehouse incident we’d called him in for was connected. Everyone asked a few basic questions, but these were all people in the know, or they wouldn’t be who I called in the first place.

They all knew what Soulkiller was, all knew what an engram was, and while my adventures with Johnny weren’t exactly well known, they weren’t a total secret either. And fixers, after all, were all about knowing things. I’m not sure if any of them aside from Rogue really understood the depth of my commitment to this particular war I was launching, because she might be only one among them who knew I was an engram myself. If the others did know, they realized it wasn’t exactly a topic for polite conversation.

Turned out, getting buy in went easier than expected. Regina had no qualms, was in for whatever we needed, as I’d predicted. Padre and El Capitan had personal connections to missing on the list, which River was able to confirm from the NCPD files coupled with what we’re grabbed from the Playhouse preview menu. They had no issue joining the efforts to salvage the engrams and burn Playhouse down. 

Mr. Hands had three open gigs, all SOS with names on the missing list, so he pulled out the other mercs he’d assigned and bounced them my way. Otherwise he didn’t really bite, aside from agreeing to decline connecting people to Playhouse if asked – though he’d be unwilling to share names of who approached him, for biz reasons of course. He did offer to let me know if any other missing person connections crossed his feed. Didn’t surprise me, but it was better than nothing. Since we were getting support elsewhere, I let him drop the call without fighting for more. 

Wakako was largely silent.

Padre left early as well, commitments drawing him away, but promised to touch base soon to figure out what assets he might have available. He hung up after saying, _“Go with God.”_

The rest left the call except for Wakako in the end. _“V, I would discuss things with you privately.”_

“Alright,” I said, and flicked the call into my HUD. “Whatcha got for me?”

_“You have come such a long way from running rescues with Mr. Welles, haven’t you? Almost doesn’t seem quite so long ago.”_

Ah, so she was going to be shit. “Three years is a pretty long time, but not long enough to forget things really. The friends who die and how they got fucked over tend to stick in the memory.”

She didn’t even blink. _“As I’m sure you will discover my involvement with the Soulkiller leak, I figured it might be best to discuss it now to avoid soiling our further interactions on this matter.”_

“Good to know you’re still willing to move anything for eddies.”

_“We all do as we see fit. And you know I will give you nothing of my clients, but even if I did, it would be useless at this point. I was far from the only one looting the nest when the golden goose fell. And once Soulkiller left Arasaka’s containment, by a number of different paths, tracing how many hands it has moved through and copied between would be near impossible.”_

“Not entirely. Takes a pretty specific know how and damn expensive equipment to do the shit Playhouse is after.” 

_“Which you have many already in your corner who can help you track such purchases and reputations, I assume.”_

“Mhm. Seems like everyone is on the same page on this one, Wakako. Doesn’t sound like a good business investment if most of the fixers in Night City won’t touch Playhouse with a ten-foot pole.”

_“On the contrary, I would ask a favor of you in this matter.”_

“Lucky me.”

 _“I am certain you will be willing to work with me on this. One of my sons went missing two weeks ago, his body found with no signs of violence – odd, don’t you think, for a Tyger Claw elite?”_ She flicked the detes over.

I swallowed, hating I felt bad for her at all. “You think his engram might be in Playhouse.”

_“I know the menu your access provided was incomplete at this point, so I will assume as much until shown otherwise. Extract my son and return him to me, and I will reward you well.”_

“I’ll take the gig Wakako, and not just because I plan on getting every engram out anyway, even the gangbangers and corpo shit stains, because no one deserves this. Keep your eddies. I’d much rather have a favor down the line, especially since I’m pretty sure you know more than you’re willing to part with at this point.”

 _“Then we both have reason to be in touch.”_ She cut the call.

I paced the room, cursing under my breath, adding a few things about what I thought about evil grandmas sitting behind their desk rubbing eddies all over their faces…

“Still here.”

I jerked to face River, who I’d somehow managed to forget about while talking to Wakako. 

“Don’t stop on my account,” he added with a laugh. “The part about her being an ‘endless, biting cunt’ was just getting good.” He drank his coffee.

I perked a brow. “Wow, I didn’t realize you were this into me talking dirty, _Ward_. Would have done more sooner.”

He grunted and set the coffee down. Very slowly. My pulse jumped as he watched me, seemed to be appraising me. 

I crossed my arms and jutted out my chin. 

Fuck if I was just going to let him walk all over me. I just wrangled the biggest fixers into Night City all into running my gig – mostly – and it was a fucking flying success. I wasn’t going to let him just let him flat out call my bluff…

…and he stood up, that predatory look of his making my very badass knees feel unsteady. 

I swallowed when I heard the locks click over for the room, pinged from his HUD. The windows were all one way looking out, good for keep out equipment hidden and prying eyes away. I hadn’t realized I’d been backing up until my ass bumped the desk behind me. 

Randy was still out picking up some tech upgrades, and I hadn’t planned on scrubbing more footage without him. Otherwise, I’d be waiting to hear from the fixers until he got back.

Really, I didn’t have anything right that moment which I had to do. It felt like Night City was about to burn down around me, Playhouse was a nightmare, but the moments between were what really kept us all alive in times of crisis, weren’t they?

River closed the space between us, trapping me between the desk and the wall and his body. He smelled like sweat and dust and I did, too; we’d been running since Joss woke us up last night, first to get Joss and the kids safe with Panam, then putting this meeting together with the fixers to get shit moving as fast as humanly possible. The last time we’d been together alone since falling asleep was in the gym…

I was still wearing his t-shirt, one he’d tossed me when the alarm was going off, and a pair of torn up jeans I’d grabbed off the dirty pile on our way out the door for Dakota’s. I’d brushed my hair a few times with some water so I didn’t look like a complete gonk on my high-profile call, but I hadn’t bothered with anything else. 

And yet River looked like he was going to devour me. 

His hands slid onto my hips, jumped me to sit on the desk, and wrapped my legs around his waist. Pressed our bodies together as he cupped the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair; I let a tiny gasp slip, from his touch and the fact I could feel he was already hard against my thigh. My lips parted on their own accord, but he didn’t kiss me, only brought his other hand up to run his thumb along my bottom lip. He knew damn well I couldn’t get enough of the sensation. 

“All this shit going on. With Joss, with the kids. This fucking case,” his voice was hushed, our lips so close they almost touched. “And every time I look at you today, all I can see you is you standing over me, telling me to watch you.”

Oh, that voice. “I thought you…” I swallowed a few times. “I thought you liked being the one in control.”

“Mhm. All you did last night was make me love it even more.” He tightened his fist in my hair. “Then there’s the fact that my wife is the most capable and well-known edgerunner in Night City, maybe the best the city’s ever seen. Just watched her call all the fixers in said city into a meeting – maybe for the first time in history – and demand their cooperation without even batting an eye. And you should see her handle a pistol.”

I laughed, grinning up at him, not above a little ego patting, not when it came from him. Not in that very particular tone he was using.

“And despite all this,” he said, his voice dropping to an even huskier whisper as he leaned even closer, his fingers tracing a line down my body. “Despite what a complete and total badass she is…” He undid the button on my pants, lowered the zipper. “All I have to do is look at her,” he said as he slid his hands again my skin, sliding along my slit with a sharp gasp from me and a bit of a growl from him, “and she falls apart for me.”

He wasn’t wrong. I closed my eyes, biting my lip and trying to fight a whimper and completely failing.

“Then there’s what happens when I put my hands on her,” he said as he slipped his fingers inside me, his palm rubbing against my clit. I moaned for him, grinding myself against his hand. He chuckled and gave my hair a gentle tug, increasing his tempo. 

I grabbed his biceps, trying to anchor myself but the feel of his muscles against my palm didn’t exactly do me any favors.

His mouth found mine, my entire body arching for more, but he left my lips way too soon, but before I could whine at him, he bit my neck, his voice rasping my ear. Fuck, it sounded like I was the one handling him when he said, “And how she’s always ready to come for me.”

“ _River_!” I tried to sound like I was scolding him, but he was fucking right, I was climbing and about to crash around his fingers.

“Come on, babe, give it to me,” he breathed, “Need it, need to feel what I do to you.”

I couldn’t do anything _but_ come for him, writhing against him, crying out for him, and he moaned against my throat as he did. Once the waves ended, every inch of my body on fire, it was a race to rip each other’s pants off, and then he hefted me back up on the desk, both of us growling as he slid home, stretching against the tightness he’d just demanded from my body.

He was panting already, my pulse skipping and jumping around, and despite all his praises and whispers, the fact that he was this hot for me every single time he touched me? That was fucking inspiring. 

“You make it easy for me, babe,” I whispered, my voice catching against every thrust, my head spinning a bit, but I felt emboldened, I felt high. I was his and he was mine and that would never, ever change. “How fucking hard you get for me?”

He grunted, his pace already uneven and forceful, equipment falling over and crashing to the floor around us, making me huff out a laughing groan as I added, “How you can barely fucking breath when you’re inside me,” a gasp from me as his hands tightened on my skin, at the growl rumbling in his chest. My voice hitched again, fuck I could barely breath myself, but if I could give him even a taste of what he did to me…

I grabbed his face, made him look at me, my nails digging into his skin. I could feel the muscles in his jaw jumping, how he was trying to smirk at me as his fingers found my clit again, but he couldn’t quite control his expression, not right now.

“How it fucking blows my mind…How…” I moaned again, and fuck, _fuck_ , he wasn’t gonna make me come again unless he did, damn it. I pressed my forehead to his, barely hissing out the words. “How the best thing in this fucking world is you coming inside me. I want it, River, I need it, now.” 

“God, V, _fuck_ …I…” He frantically tried to keep his fingers working, his words deteriorating into growling grunts and moans, which was the edge I needed to follow him over as he came. 

When we were both done, panting against each other, he dropped his head down to nibble my shoulder, mumbling, “Love you,” against my skin.

“Love you, too, Ward.”

Which made him laugh and bite harder, then smack me on the ass. “Never gonna get anything done if you keep that up, _Ward_.”

And then we were both laughing, followed by a few silly kisses, then we cleaned ourselves up before Randy showed up and we traumatized him – which wouldn’t be first time he’d walked in on us by mistake.

Which reminded me. “We just broke Randy’s number one rule.”

“Which one?”

“No funny biz in shared spaces.”

River planted a peck on my lips. “I say our house, our rules.”

Which I liked very much.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

Two days later, we weren’t making much headway. I sat on the couch in the tech hub, rubbing my forehead as I listened to Randy and Nix spitball ideas. It had taken a personal request from Rogue to get Nix to come out of Afterlife, but once he got here, he dug in. We’d been at it for hours now, and I was a mix of absolutely furious and frustrated beyond compression. 

We’d started by accessing a preview into one of the AR rooms on Playhouse to finally get a hands on look at what we were working with – and to keep the account from being suspicious if we never actually used the product. The link-in claimed “real life experiences without consequences or restrictions,” basically opening up the braindance linked AR experience to the user. Picked a base room, with promise of more to come in the future, and the accessories you could manifest once in the room were pretty expansive. 

We came up with a rather benign idea, searched the offerings to find a corpo suit so we could go in and yell at them for being an asshole. Drew up a rich apartment setting, loaded in a generic avatar. Randy ran the interface while Nix analyzed everything inch by inch and I made sure our back end wasn’t leaking anything that might blow our cover. Randy’s dummy accounts and decoy nets were damn preem work. 

When we loaded in and the ‘projection’ joined us, I felt sick. We’d identified this man as Arnold Pizra, a real fine piece of shit who spent time at Arasaka before they collapsed, and had joined the up-and-coming Blue Aura corporation with a lot of other Arasaka defects before he ended up here. 

Despite all that, he was still an engram. Still a person who had no idea what the fuck was going on and it showed. He was pissed, reaming Randy out for daring to interrupt him, but the bluff was clear – we even had access to his vitals, so to speak, so we as the user could gauge how effective our interactions were. They screamed back and forth, ending with Randy punching him – as planned – and I think we all winced when the blow broke his nose and blood sprayed. 

Randy dipped us out a few minutes after, the corpo out cold, and left a three-star rating before he logged off. 

“You okay?” I asked him again. Randy nodded; he was digging through what we could scrum from the backside of the encounter, and Nix was deeper in than Randy already. After a few minutes of watching over their shoulders, I was lost.

“This shit is nuts,” Randy said. “I’ve never seen anything this complicated.” He slumped in the netrunner chair, his face flushed. He rubbed his knuckles, same hand he’d used to punch the engram.

“You need a break, you take it,” I said to him. “And next time I’ll take the dirty gig, alright? I’m not letting you do this every time.”

“I’m fine, Auntie V,” he said, the nickname a bit sharp. “I’m up for doing what it takes, just like everyone else, but I’m not gonna take a fucking nap instead of making what I just did worth it, okay?”

“I get it,” I said quietly. To Nix, who was pretending not to be listening, I asked, “What’s your take?”

“Randy is right. This is complicated as fucking hell.” He leaned back a bit, crossing his arms. Thinking. “A few weeks after Arasaka crashed, I got my hands on a leaked Soulkiller rip.”

“The fuck, Nix.”

He waved a hand. “Turned out to be a partial stretch of code, whoever offloaded it was selling in pieces. Never the whole program in the same place at the same time. But Soulkiller, now, that is some fucking code. Alt Cunningham was a messiah, my friend.”

I didn’t add how right he was, and all the other things he didn’t need to know about her. “What did you do with it?”

“I squirreled it away. Useless in partial format, figured maybe I’d stumbled across a few more pieces over the years.”

I hated the fact he still had it all, but that was a conversation for a different time, when I didn’t need his help. Nix was one of the best. “And what does it have to do with Playhouse?”

“Whoever built this jumped off parts of the Soulkiller code, and the Secure Your Soul program vaults, meaning the leak was bigger than just Soulkiller, for one. But this build is…” He pursed his lips, then surged with excitement. “Whatever you think of the product, this code is epic shit. Preem as fuck. And wired and primed to take out anything I could throw at it. Breaking into this? This is Fort Knox, V. Real talk. It’s going to take months to even start cracking this bitch open.”

Fuck. “What would it take to speed things up?”

“Fuck load of eddies, for one. But I get the game plan here, and I understand the stakes, V. This is low for the lowest. Trapping minds? Using them like unwilling dolls for fucked up fantasies? Rogue didn’t need to talk me into being on you guys’ side for this one, but not everyone is gonna feel the same. I’ll need help, and vetting that help is going to be tricky if we’re trying to keep this on the DL.”

“Eddies aren’t an issue. Rogue is up for fronting the resources, same as me. Can you get a list going of people you can trust?”

“Will do.” Nix adjusted his glasses. “Gotta be careful, though, busting the doors down.”

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “Be easier if we could just wipe the fucking thing, but we need to get the engrams out safely first. Which also means…”

“Gotta build a place to catch and store them,” Nix finished with a nod. “I’ll work here with Randy a bit more, dive into this access.”

“Just remember these are people.”

“I dig, V. Also know you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet. Randy’s right,” he said with a nod in Randy’s direction, who still looked a bit nausea from his time on the Playhouse preview. “If we don’t use this account as expected, we might lose access. Imagine it will be harder to come by a second time around.”

I rubbed by face. God, I fucking hated he was right. “Only what we need to do, okay?”

“Agreed,” Nix said, turning back to the screen.

“If you get the help, the right people. How long are we looking at? You can’t really believe we have a few months to deal with this before it becomes a bigger problem.”

“Between needing a break-in, an extraction and a catch net? Months isn’t an exaggeration, but five weeks might be possible? Maybe, but that’s pushing it, even with unlimited eddies. Not to mention we’ll need backend access to Playhouse to boot.”

A fucking month or more of this shit in the world, and only if we could find the fucker again. My head throbbed, and I offered a weak nod before excusing myself. I wandered the hallway for a few minutes, passing the gym without enough energy to punch. I felt strung out, tired and defeated. It hurt every time I looked out the window to Joss and the kids’ empty home, hurt more every time I saw River or Randy do the same. And then there were all the engrams stuck in that hellscape.

I wandered into the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face a few times, watching the water circle the drain. I smirked a bit as I thought of Johnny, what he might have to say about this fucking mess if he were still bouncing around in my mind. 

Since coming back to Night City, keeping busy had done a lot to keep Johnny from my mind. Months in and out of a coma from the procedure to keep me alive helped manage the gap between having a second voice in my head to having my head back to myself. I still thought of him a lot though, most often when I woke up before River and watched him sleep, thankful for all Johnny had given me by going with Alt.

Alt.

My hands clenched the sink, and I swore, I swore I could hear Johnny’s voice when the idea smacked me so hard, I had to sit down on the toilet.

_Took you long enough._

If Playhouse was based at all around Soulkiller’s code, then Alt might be able to crack it.

All I had to do was get myself to Blackwall again so I could ask for her help.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the feels in this one. :O

“I hate this.”

“I know, River. Me, too.”

We stood on the second-floor balcony outside the tech hub where Nix, Randy and a few other hands we’d pulled in were laying the ground work for our own miniature version of the Voodoo Boys’ citadel. The sun hung low over the foothills backing up to our neighborhood, painting red along the horizon. 

“Won’t be up and running until tomorrow evening at the earliest,” I offered, taking a sip of my beer. 

“Not enough time to talk myself out of not even _trying_ to talk you out of this.” River sighed, leaning heavily against the railing. 

I watched away from Night City with him, feeling the same sting of betrayal from the lights. And now I was reaching back towards what almost took me away from him forever. 

I leaned my head on his shoulder, loving and hating the fact we’d both understood; I had to go to Alt. Nothing else would end this mania for certain, and I couldn’t sit by while those engrams suffered if we could do something about it. 

When I looked up the water tower caught my eye. It was one of the few things we hadn’t touched when we refurbished and expanded the area. I smiled to myself; too sentimental to change. We had fixed the gate, though. 

“Come on,” I said, taking his hand. “No sense sitting here, they’ve got it under control. Let’s take a walk.” I nodded toward the water tower, the stars peeking out around it.

He gave me a sad smile and took my hand. As we made our way through the house and outside, his fingers fidgeted against my palm. 

“Run me through it,” I said as we walked.

“Bothers me not having a clear answer about the box on Joss’s porch.”

“It’s only been two days, River. Given the rings the fucker’s running us through? I’m not surprised tracking this is a pain in the ass, too.”

“Doesn’t quite add up, though. Things have been silent otherwise. We’ve been hot on this case since we got it, that warehouse was the third time we went on the offensive. Even if he’d figured out who we were, why bait us? And why do it when he did?”

We rounded behind our complex, stepping down onto the trail to the water tower. “Maybe he got pissed we almost nabbed him.”

“Doesn’t fit the profile. Everything this man does is purposeful and careful. Now that we know the end game, the body dumps make more sense, too. He gets whoever he catches, uses Soulkiller, then gets rid of the bodies as fast as he can. No show, nothing flashy, as little time spent with the victims as possible. Every single person he took went missing without any witnesses. His MO is silence, not boasting. Not showing off.”

“He left that shitty shard the second time we found him.”

“No risk involved. He left it where we’d already be looking. He didn’t give us any new information by giving us the finger when we took his second hideaway from him.” River’s agitation grew the longer he spoke. “Coming onto our home ground to throw gasoline on the fire? That’s risky. It doesn’t add up.”

“Keep chasing it.” I gave his hand a squeeze as we reached the gate. He opened the door for me and we stepped inside. “This is your area and you’ll run it down. You’re an amazing detective River, even if the title isn’t official anymore.”

He grunted as we climbed the tower, settling in a few minutes later with our feet dangling over the edge. Once we were there he seemed to relax, but only just. “Hell of a view we’ve made out of this.”

“It was pretty great to begin with,” I said, our shoulders pressing together.

The complex, once a trailer park with a few odd buildings, was now a thriving neighborhood. All the locales stayed with our revamp, all happy staples in this new slice of reasonable we’d built on Night City’s border. Shit still came up, though our reputations and this entire juncture being considered Ward turf kept most of the rabble away. We’d even had a few contacts move into the apartments we’d built over the years. We’d done good here, we were continuing to do good, even if the path forward was fucking complicated and dangerous.

“Will the dive work with Vik’s external reader?” River asked.

I shivered in the cooling air. “No, it won’t.”

His hand came up, fingers running gently over the scared skin effectively sealing my neural port. It was still there, because it had to be. It held my engram.

“You sure, V?”

I turned my head, kissing his palm. “Honestly? Fuck no.” We shared a strained laugh. “But do you see another way forward? Who else would Alt even answer at the Blackwall if they crossed in? It has to be me and we have to hope that’s enough.”

“Johnny is part of her code now, right?”

The thought made my heart ache. “Yeah, though even she didn’t know exactly what it would mean, absorbing him or whatever.”

“Then we have to believe it will be enough. He had the chance to take everything from you, V, and instead he fought for you, for your life. Indirectly, for us.”

I smiled, my eyes damp. “Well, I don’t know if he’d agree he fought for us. You have any idea how much he bitched me out for fucking a cop?”

“Ex-cop.”

“I know! Shithead never listened to me, I swear to god. Though he did peg you from the gate.”

“What now?”

“Caught you watching my ass when we were breaking into that lab.”

“You’ve seen your ass, right?”

“This one?” I said as I slipped onto his lap, draping my arms over his shoulders, as his hands moved along my hips to give our topic of conversation a good squeeze. 

“Mhm.” 

I kissed him, tongues teasing, a little lip nibbling here and there, before he sighed, breaking the kiss to bury his face in my neck. 

“Tell me you’ll come back to me. I can’t live this life without you, not anymore. I’m not trying to scare you, not trying to change your mind or tell you not to do this, but if you’re not here, with me, when all this is over? I won’t survive it, Valerie. You’re everything to me, you understand me? _Everything_.”

The intensity in his gaze as frightening as it was consuming. I touched his face, run my fingers along his lips, his cheeks, the strain pinching around his eyes. “I have every intention of coming back to you, River Ward, because you are everything to me. _You_ understand _me_?” 

But I swallowed a few times, because I had thought of the worst-case scenario. I was diving back into the deep net, running into Blackwall against arguably the most powerful AI ever to exist, who may or may not give a shit about my best interests. 

“I have a backup plan. I already talked it over with Randy and Nix, and since we’re only storing one engram and not long term, we don’t have to deal with all of the complications.”

“What—”

“They’re going to copy my engram before I go in. If something happens while I’m down there, if I get wiped or Alt traps me, or the million other things that could go wrong, they can burn me out and load up the copy. Be like nothing ever happened. I mean, I won’t have any memories after the copy is made, but it will be me, just like now. Just like how I came back after Alt used Soulkiller to separate me and Johnny and put me back in my body.”

“V…” He was shaking, closed his eyes and leaned against my palm. I pressed my other hand against his chest.

“Not planning on needing it, but I’m already an engram anyway so we might as well use that to our advantage instead of pretending we can’t. Instead of pretending I’m a normal person.”

He stood suddenly, hauling me up with him. Moving us away from the edge, and then my back was against the water tower and his forehead was locked against mine. My heart stuttered; fuck, he was crying. “River…”

“You are a person, V. I know we’ve been over it this, but you still have nightmares where you wake up screaming about being deleted.”

“Just dreams, just stupid fucking—” 

“Don’t think I don’t know how hard this is for you, thinking about the other people locked in Playhouse. I might not be able to understand it entirely, but I see what you feel and I feel what you feel because babe, you are my fucking heart.”

“River…”

“You’re not just some damn engram. You are my wife, my love, my fucking soul. And whatever you need to do to feel safe, to feel right about diving into this, you do it.” His voice hitched, lowered, god it hurt to listen to as he said, “And if that means I have to load up you back up, then I will love you exactly the same as if we’d never had to have this damn conversation. You’re mine, V. I will never let you go as long as you’re mine.”

“Good,” I whispered, barely trusting myself to speak, tears falling down my face. “Because I’ll always be yours, River. Always.” I kissed him, the softest brush of our lips. “But I have a request.”

“Anything.”

“I want the last thing my copy remembers to be you making love to me.”

“Then let’s go inside.”

We didn’t speak as we made our way to the house, back inside and into our bedroom. I found myself savoring every detail of the walk; the sky, the house we’d built, the neighborhood around us. The way our bedroom was simple, only a bed and nightstand for each of us, a few pictures of the family on the dresser across the room, the wide window looking out across the landscape, and the other wall insulating us from all the baggage Night City hauled around with it. 

He shut the door behind us, dimming the lights low but not shutting them off entirely. I felt him come up behind me before he touched me, his hands resting on my shoulders, running the length of my arms. I faced him, touching his cheek, his lips. I wanted, needed, to savor everything about him, everything he was to me. He tugged the hem of my shirt and I lifted my arms so he could slip it off. The way he watched me felt the same; he needed this as much as I did.

I took his shirt off the same way, moving closer, hands curled against his chest. One of his palms settled against the small of my back, the other brushing the hair from my eyes, tucking it behind my ear. He kissed me with agonizing care, with utter devotion. He broke the kiss first to press his lips once against my forehead before moving to my neck, my collarbone, my heart, his lips flowing along my stomach as he knelt in front of me. 

He undid my pants, shimmied them down my legs, cupping each calf as he helped me step out of them, doing the same with my underwear before rising again, my body already electric bliss. Once he stood, I did the same for him. He stepped from the puddle of clothing at his feet, his breathing heavy as he picked me up and carried me to our bed, laying me down as if I was the most valuable thing he’d ever touched.  
Our bodies fit, pressed together in matching shapes built for each other alone, and we kissed again, the moment bleeding into what felt like hours, a moment I would have traded over anything. 

Gradually he traced the line of my body, his hand drifting between my legs, which fell open for him with as a sigh crossed my lips over his. His fingers drifted, delicate in their exploration, no urgency in the motions. My head sunk unto the pillows as I craned my neck back, inviting his mouth, his lips, wanting to feel him breathing against me. I held the back of his neck, the other hand finding and grasping the sheet as he turned his hand to slide his fingers, three in turn, inside me, stroking me with drawn out motions, curling inside me, his thumb coaxing my body along the rise.

“River,” I tasted his name as I said, reveled in the way he nuzzled into my neck in response. 

“I love you,” he said under my ear, his voice near breaking.

“I love you,” I answered, my voice trailing off into a gasp, a whimper, a moan. He craned his head back to watch me, and I held his eyes, reaching up to press my hand over his heart as my body quivered for him, the orgasm slowly rising and washing over me, and he brought me through the echoes, led me down as gently as he’d brought me to the precipice and over. 

There was no playing now, none of the roughness between us we enjoyed so much, only the love. He shifted his body over mine and I guided him inside me, and as he buried himself in me, to the core, I lifted my hips to meet him and his lips found mine again.

Every stroke was a gift, each movement making me liquid in his arms, and how he melted against me, how there was nothing else but this moment between us right now. We held the kiss, savored each thrust, each press of our bodies together, both desperately trying to be closer, deeper, as one. I felt him getting closer, but he didn’t break the kiss, one arm looping around my waist to push and pull us together, the other propping himself up. I threw both of my arms around his neck, refusing to have him so far away, and he crushed against me, his groan filling my mouth, his need filling my soul. Faster now, making love to me in force, and then claimed me, breaking the kiss as he climaxed so we could stare into each other until his head collapsed against my shoulder as he moaned my name in release.

We stayed there, tangled as one body, letting the sweat cool our skin. We kissed, touched, held each other for hours, maybe more, before I kissed him gently on the lips and slipped away, promising to return. 

I cleaned up and made my way to the tech hub. Randy didn’t say much, neither did Nix, and Vik was there as requested to reopen the port in my skull. 

It was strange, how it only took a few minutes to copy a life, everything I was, to a backup drive. 

Randy handed me the shard – looked like any other except for the V etched in the corner, and I put it in the case Vik designed for keeping it properly stored – a simple thing, really, since unlike the relic which held Johnny, this wasn’t carrying a program to override anything, no unstable tech. It was just me, ready to be reloaded from the moment after I left River’s arms if the worst came to pass when I reached into the Blackwall again.

I didn’t say anything as I left, made my way to our bedroom. River sat up in the bed, waiting, and I crossed the room and sat beside him. Handed him my engram copy, my duplicate life a box which fit in his hand. He turned it over once, then used his palm to unlock his nightstand safe and tucked it carefully inside. 

Then he made love to me a second time, urgent and raw and desperate.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Into Blackwall, here we go!

“Sure you’re ready for this, Auntie V?”

I stared into the ice bath shaped like a coffin, and all I could do was laugh. “No, not really. I just…I need a few more minutes.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you need.” Randy gave me a half smile, which was bullshit. I knew he was freaking out, too. 

I sat on the couch, breathing deeply, holding my face in my hands. 

I heard Randy ask Nix to run him through the citadel protocol again – buying me time. Vik was here as well, standing in the corner with his arms crossed, in case anything physically went wrong or we ran into any issues with my port since I hadn’t used it since the ex-corpo regrew all my bits and pieces. It had worked last night to make my engram copy, but Vik didn’t like the idea of suddenly driving it into overload by sending me deep down to Blackwall.

What was there to like, really?

What I really wanted was River in the room.

River and I had agreed this morning it would be best if we didn’t see each other again until I came back from this trip – one way or another. If I died trying to get to Blackwall, or Alt flatlined me for some reason, or my port failed, or the million other things that could go wrong, Vik would load up my engram copy, and her – my – memories would end when the copy had been created. 

River’s wouldn’t. He would remember everything in between, so we decided we shouldn’t interact more before I took this dive. It would make accepting the backup copy easier for him if there weren’t as many pieces missing.

I rubbed my face a few times, my hands shaking. Not that I was counting on dying, but damned if I was going to risk leaving River alone if shit went sideways. The thought of it – not coming back to him and having an earlier version of me pick up where we left off? I couldn’t completely wrap my brain around it, aside from the fact they called it Soulkiller for reason, and now was the wrong time for me to start questioning what it meant for me to still exist in the first place, or the fact I probably wasn’t technically human anymore. 

Exactly the kind of shit I tried not to think about for fuck’s sake, because it did this – made my head fucking swim, made me feel like I was going to fucking pass out or lose my mind.

All I wanted was River’s arms around me, telling me he loved me and he believed in me. And I couldn’t even fucking have that.

But neither could any of the engrams rotting in Playhouse. 

“Fuck this,” I said, standing and shaking out of my arms, ignoring the panic attack brewing, and I strode over and slung my leg into the icy tank. “Fuck it, let’s fucking do this.”

Randy and Nix swarmed me immediately, working to set me up for the dive. I grabbed Randy’s hand when he moved by, and he stopped to kneel beside me. Despite the netrunner suit, I was already freezing, teeth chattering as I spoke.

“Your job is to help him accept the backup if this version of me doesn’t come back, preem?” I shuddered, and he squeezed my hand harder. “Please, for me.”

“Yeah, I got you, V. Promise.”

“You’re alright, kid. Don’t let anyone ever fucking tell you different.”

Fuck, Randy looked like he might cry, so I closed my eyes and sunk up to my chin in the freezing water, ice cubs bumping all over my body.

“V?” It was Nix this time. “After what you told me about Alt’s reaction to the netrunners Bridgette brought in with her, we’re not jacking in with you for this, like we talked about. We have a subroutine running in the citadel though, and it should project as a pair of glasses. When you put them on, the program we’ve slotted will chart a path from our hold out to the Blackwall.”

“Ok-kay,” I said, my voice stuttering from the cold.

“Time can get weird down there, and distance isn’t physical like it is here, either,” Randy said. “Remember you can move as fast as slow as you want, though it will fuck with your perceived senses. We can give you about an hour, max, before you’ll run into physical issues with your body, not to mention the strain on your mind being deep that long. The program we wrote you has a timer, too, so keep an eye on it. If you can come out yourself instead of us dragging you back, it will be easier.”

“G-got it. Go f-fast, d-d-don’t fuck around.”

“And don’t do anything stupid,” Randy added. “We good, Nix?”

“All green. Ready to dive, V?”

“G-go.”

It wasn’t a physical sensation, dropping into the miniature citadel, but my mind did it’s best to convince me I was falling. I floated through space, through blue lights and data, and found myself standing in a square box no bigger around than the tech hub in our house, outlines like a blueprint, every blank space textured in between. The only thing that wasn’t blue was a pair of yellow glasses floating a few feet away. I reached for them, reminding myself I could move without stepping, and slid through the space to grab them and slip them on.

I wasn’t the novice netrunner I’d been when Bridgette brought me to Blackwall before. And while I’d never had any reason to go back, to dive so deep, I’d done other dives for gigs and cases. Still, the path the glasses showed me seemed to run forever out into nothing. 

The timer showed I’d been here for three minutes already, thinking about how fucking daunting all this shit was, wasting bandwidth and time. 

I jaunted out of our safe space, vaulting forward as far as my mind could comprehend. Then I did it again, moving what would have been miles in seconds, flashing and speeding along the corridors and between them, colors bleeding by me in surges.

It was easy, but at the same time I could feel my being stretching with each stride, the strain pulling at me even though it didn’t have a tangible effect on me, my presence, in this weird fucked up version of now. 

Despite it all, I found myself at Blackwall in mere minutes, albeit significantly slower than when I’d arrived here with Johnny as bait all those years ago.   
I swallowed a few times – or would have, if I could here – the red gleaming in an endless barricade unwelcoming to human visitors. Last time I’d had Johnny’s memories to call Alt from wherever she’d been in the endless void beyond this red line. 

Would she even hear me now? Would my memories of her serve well enough to get her attention? Would my desperation and fear around Playhouse get her to bite?

Was I wasting my fucking time and risking my life for nothing?

I’d never been patient, so time to find out.

I extended my projected hand and slipped across the border, the red flashing and giving way to a sensation not unlike cold or darkness, but more profound. Familiar, but only because I’d done it once before.

“Alt?” I called. “Alt, it’s V. Please answer me, I need your help.”

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. I think at the very least I expected her to make me wait. 

Instead, everything flashed and I didn’t even see what swallowed me up until I found myself standing in a small room, the details more defined than the room Nix and Randy had programmed, the light a little crisper. When I looked down at my hands, they were clearer, less transparent, and I swore I could feel the floor under my heels even though the question of real or not real here could drive a philosopher to drink.

I frowned then, because I swore I smelled smoke right before a voice said, “Fuck me, here I thought I’d never see you again. Must have gotten yourself into some deep shit without me, huh V?”

I spun, my voice coming out in a choked whisper. “Johnny?”

And there he was, looking the same as when he’d lived in my mind, leaning against the semi-transparent wall, semi-transparent himself, flicking the projected ash from his smoke as he took off his aviators and gave me his iconic, shit-eating grin.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

I didn’t even hesitate. I raced across the space between us and threw myself at Johnny, crushing him in a hug, which garnered a tiny ‘oof’ from him and a chuckle before he hugged me back. 

I shoved away from him a few seconds later, wiping my eyes even though there weren’t any tears here. Wherever here actually was.

“What the fuck, Johnny. Alt said you’d just absorb into her. Or disappear. Or…whatever. How the fuck are you standing here? How the fuck am I talking to you?” I was laughing out half my words, and he just kept grinning at me, cock-sure as always.

“Who knows, V, aside from the fact that I always was a stubborn asshole.”

“Now you admit it. Finally.”

“Not sure I ever denied it, really.”

I shook my head. “Been three years. How…what is it like?”

He shrugged, took another drag as we leaned on a pixelated wall next to each other. “Weird? But not so bad. Once we realized I wasn’t going to just vanish, it pretty much left me free to be. Place is fucked though, doesn’t work like the real world. I get bored, I can snap myself out and let time go by. Or can slow it down, kinda drift. Wrote a bunch of new songs that way, though the acoustics here are fucking garbage.”

I glanced around, the blue code swirling around us. “Are we in Blackwall now?”

“Nah, this is a little shindig I propped up when I heard you calling for Alt.”

Alt. Right, the entire reason I was here. “I need her help.”

“I heard. Thing is, not sure she’s interested. If it wasn’t for her stake Mikoshi and our personal history, she might not have showed the first time.”

“Soulkiller is out on the prowl Johnny, and some asshole is turning people to engrams and putting them in this fucked up torture space called Playhouse. There’s at least three hundred people trapped, maybe more.”

I ran a bit more detail of the situation by him, everything rushing out, talking to him as easy as it had been when he was in my head. It was comforting and eerie at the same time, the way he nodded here and there, that familiarity of another mind who knew exactly how mine worked. 

“Fuck,” Johnny said, his voice quiet.

“I thought maybe seeing her code all fucked up like this would fire Alt up.”

Johnny shrugged his lanky shoulders. “Might have if it was fifty years back. Like she told us before, she’s not Alt anymore, not like she used to be. And to tell you the truth, it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Almost like the more time she spends out here the less person is left and the more it’s just code.”

I winced. “I always thought maybe, or hoped I guess…you know…if things went the best possible way you guys would reconnect out here.”

“Like I said, maybe if it was fifty years sooner.”

“What about you?” I asked quietly. 

He shrugged again, tossed down the butt and ground it under his heel. “Too soon to say. But another fifty years? Fuck if I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey, no regrets. Just lucky I keep getting these weird ass life extensions. But speaking of time, we need to figure this out and get you moving. Can’t stay here, V, as much as I’m enjoying the visit.”

“Are you sure Alt won’t help?”

“Not even sure I can draw her out right now.” He paused for a moment, cocked his head. “Well, she’s listening after all, look at that.” He listened for a few more minutes, started pacing, rubbed his chin. “Huh, not a bad idea.”

“What’s not a bad idea?”

He grinned over at me. Made me furious as much as it made me excited – this was exactly the fucking look he gave me every time he was going to say something brilliant or absolutely infuriating, and I never knew what I’d end up with, even when he was living inside my brain.

“See, being out here, not much for me to do. Been doing all I really can do, which is become a better program, and Alt just handed me the keys so to speak. She won’t help, but I’m ready to chip in.”

“Really?” I laughed. “You didn’t know a fucking quickhack from your ass, Silverhand.”

“I’ve had time for upgrades. Like the Soulkiller code, for example.” He tapped the side of his head. “All up here now.”

“You think you can break into Playhouse?”

“Pretty sure I can walk right in the front fucking door.”

“You’re shitting me, right?”

“Not even a little.”

“Fuck, Johnny.” I rubbed my face, some of the tension from the last three months finally starting to lift. “Alright, alright, what do we need to do to make this happen?”

“That’s the part you’re not gonna like.” His expression shifted; not regret, not exactly. “There’s only one way to get me out of this shithole, V.”

“Wait…you…you’re not serious?”

“Afraid so. If you want my help, I’d gotta hitch a ride again, just like old times.”

I know it wasn’t my actual heart, but for a minute, I felt like it stopped again. “…fuck.”

“Yeah.” He stepped away from me. “Not exactly the same as old times, aside from me being a squatter in your mind. No relic means no overwrite program. Won’t be a hostile takeover, but I’m guessing the pills won’t work either. Hopefully it won’t take us long to get me into Playhouse.”

I blinked a few times. “Wait, you want to go in there?”

“Didn’t I say through the front doors? Christ V, married life making you slow?” He laughed when I reached up to touch my neural port. “Not in there yet, but that’s hard to miss.” 

He pointed at my hand. Even in the pixelated blue, my ring tattoo was bright and clear. 

“The cop?”

“Ex-cop,” I corrected. 

Johnny grinned. “Guess he really was a good input.”

“Eat a dick, Johnny.”

He laughed again. “Just don’t tell me you’ve got a bunch of little shits running around.”

“No, not yet. And again, eat a dick.” We just grinned at each for a minute, and I kind of felt like crying. “I never really got to thank you, for everything. For saving my life.”

“Got you time, V. Fact that you’re standing here? You saved your own life once I got out of the way.”

“Missed you, asshole.” I drew a deep breath. “And I trust you. But I should go back, talk this over with my team. With River.”

“Look, I get it, V, but your time on this dive is getting slim. Can read it in the way you’re flickering and shit. And a dive like this is going to fuck your body up, same as last time. Not trying to be a pushy fuck, but if you want to do this? Want me to help you bury this Playhouse shit? I should go with you now so you don’t have come out here again. Truth is, you’re not gonna get a better offer. Besides,” he said, spreading his arms. “I got nothing better to do.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

I came from the ice bath with a wheezing gasp, and I was immediately lifted from the tub. Voices rattled around me, my head throbbing, my entire body numb as warm towels piled around me. 

I heard Vik first. “Vitals are stable, no damage to the port, but the read out is a little choppy. V? V, can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” I croaked, licked chapped lips. A needle pricked my arm.

“Just a stim,” Vik said, “Should help you shake off the crash.”

“Okay,” I managed, keeping my eyes screwed closed. Fuck, it was bright in here. 

“Clean dive, V. Aside from the part where we lost your signal for about twenty minutes,” Nix said.

“Yeah, what the actual fuck,” Randy said, his voice shaking. “Gotta give some warning, you know?”

“In her defense, we didn’t really know what would happen once she crossed Blackwall,” Nix reminded him. “I’d certainly never seen that shit before.”

“Water?” I asked, and a few seconds later a glass was against my lips and a took a few slow sips. “And dim the fucking lights.”

Randy laughed, and when the lights dimmed, I cracked my eyes open see he was the one holding the glass. “Being your nephew is scary shit, man.”

“Be scarier for me if you weren’t,” I offered, squinting up at him. 

That was when I noticed there were four shapes moving me in the room. My heart leapt – River was quick, and I smiled, but then the room came a little more into focus.

Johnny leaned against the wall, looking around the room with an appreciative nod. _“Hell of a setup you got here, V.”_

Before I could say anything, River did come barreling into the room, the door slapping hard against the frame, and the he had my face in both hands, searching my eyes. 

“V?”

“I’m good, River. I’m fine.” I tried to keep talking, but his mouth smothering mine and I melted into the kiss even though I was exhausted. It didn’t last long, then he was crushing me in his arms again. 

_“Christ, V. That’s…overwhelming. Better tell him what’s going on before this goes any further.”_

His tone made me peel back from River so I could get a good look at Johnny. His edges were fuzzy, but he wasn’t flickering like he had been with the relic. He seemed frazzled, but there was no pain on my end like there had been last time, no pressure, no feeling like he was leaking all over the place. He was just there. 

“What is?” I asked him aloud, then I realized everyone was staring at me staring at what to them was a blank wall.

_“What’s overwhelming? This fucking romance novel level ga-ga shit. And the fact that I’m not able to step back at all. Can’t dip to the backseat of your mind, or whatever I did last time.”_ He paced a few times, ran a hand through his hair, clearly agitated. _“Still feeling every damn thing you do, still can hear what you’re thinking and all that shit, but yeah, I’m stuck in the front seat with you. So please.”_ He shot me a glare. _“Keep it in your fucking pants.”_

I laughed. It just kind of bubbled up out of me. This entire thing was fucking insane. I’d almost died because I’d had Johnny in my head, and now I’d invited him right back in, and it was already getting weird as shit, and here he was most worried about having to fuck a cop again.

_“Am not,”_ he said, pointing a finger at me. _“And cranking one off in digital really isn’t as good as you might think, so I might even enjoy riding along, who knows. But right now I’m more worried about the way everyone is looking at you.”_

I swallowed, taking in the faces around me, and he was right. They all looked spooked. “So, um, the dive was a success, just not in the way we expected.”

Fuck, I knew what came next wasn’t going to be fun. I winced as I said, “I brought back help, but it’s not from Alt.”

River, Randy, Vik and Nix all just stared at me. 

“I brought back Johnny.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

This was going better than I’d expected. Kind of.

Nix, Randy and Vik all agreed that another dive would have been a huge risk, especially if it was close to my first, so they at least admitted the wisdom of me taking the help over jumping out of the dive to get opinions on the new plan.

River didn’t say anything to that, pretty sure it was because he would have fought me with everything he had if I tried to dive back in to put Johnny in my head again.

Vik’s scanned showed nothing concerning in the neural port, just that I was carrying more data than I had going in. He couldn’t actually decipher the data in any meaningful way; neither could Nix or Randy, and I didn’t bother to try. All of which did little to assuage River.

He was being remarkably quiet about his opinion, but I didn’t need to share his mind to feel his distress over the situation. After a bit more arguing I was fine with the other three, I convinced them to load up everything they’d captured regarding Playhouse’s hub, backend and code, so Johnny could get a look at it through me. 

Best thing to do was move forward, because I’d already locked us into this path. They got to work, but I owed River more. We left together, making our way to the kitchen. The dive had left me ravenous. Johnny lingered in my periphery, unusually quiet for Johnny, but I had no idea if it had to do with his manners improving during his stay in Blackwall, or if he was as freaked out as I was that the experience we were sharing was different this time around.

Fuck, we should have been elated – it wasn’t killing me having him in my mind – but I could tell the inability to fall back was chaffing Johnny hard. I felt his agitation, but a much milder experience on my end compared to malfunctioning relic. I glanced at him, wondering if it was more intense for him this time. 

He half shrugged at me in reply. He wasn’t sure.

I felt River’s eyes drilling into me, so I focused on him and making a quick sandwich, stuffing it into my face to give him one less thing to worry about.

“I wanted to talk to you first,” I said after I’d taken a few bites. River sat on the barstool beside me, his hands folded on the surface. He looked at his fingers, not me. When I reached out to cover his hands with mine, he didn’t pull away, and I breathed a sigh of relief. 

_“Seen enough of your thoughts in the hour I’ve been back to know he’s not going anywhere, V. Don’t waste your time on bullshit you know is bullshit.”_

I forced myself not to look at Johnny, only shooting him the desire for him to shut up for now.

“River, talk to me, please.”

“Just scared, V. Last time this almost killed you. You’re telling me this is different. Heard all the tech talk. Listened to Vik say you look good, all fine, but I am terrified.” River’s voice was barely above a whisper. He kissed the back of my hand. “The last few hours were about as bad as when you went with Panam.”

“River…”

He shrugged. “I know. Just hate I can’t help you right now. Again.”

“Of course you can help. We knock out Playhouse. We’ve still got to track down the physical vault, do all that detective work you’re the best at. This isn’t over, but the faster it is, the faster we get back to normal.”

“So he’s here now. Johnny?”

“Yeah. And it looks like he can’t...give me privacy like he could before. Maybe it had something to do with the relic takeover program and how fucked up it was after I died.” River winced when I said it, and I moved on quickly. “This is going to be weird for a bit. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I did this without your buy in. We’re partners, and I know I promised—”

“I get it, V. I don’t like it, but I get it.” He shifted on the stool, glancing around the room, eyes chasing the shadows. “He can hear me?”

“Yeah. Sees, hears and feels whatever I do.” I pointed across the room, where Johnny had settled into a casual lean near the window, watching outside. “He’s right there. I mean, that’s where I see him.”

River looked that direction. Seemed to shore himself up, let out a long exhale. Johnny glanced at me, then at River.

“I know you could have taken her body for yourself. And I know what you did in the end, how you stepped out so she could live. Never thought I’d actually get a chance to tell you, but thank you. I love her more than I can explain.”

My heart fluttered a bit, a soft smile on my lips. Johnny looked like he wanted to roll his eyes, but he crossed his arms instead and kept looking at River.

“I’m trusting you because I trust her, so please keep her safe, wherever this shitshow goes next.” River’s fists tightened. “Keep her safe when I can’t be there.”

_“Fine, sure, tell him he’s welcome. And tell him to just keep his hardon to himself, alright? These puppy dog eyes? Give me a fucking break. Can we move on now?”_

I grinned at Johnny. “He said you’re welcome. And he’s embarrassed as hell right now.” I threw back my head and laughed, then added for River’s benefit, “Anyone ever tell you thank you, Johnny? Before me. And now River.”

_“Fuck you.”_  
“Pretty sure that’s a no.”

_“Rocked enough bitches in the bedroom I was swimming in thank yous. We done now? Fucking Christ.”_

River’s posture had loosened, but only a little bit. I gave his hand a squeeze. “Johnny’s not used to being genuinely appreciated. And not being able to run away when things get sappy.”

He flipped me off, clearly done with the topic. I didn’t care. I let my thoughts focus on my own gratitude for a few seconds, along with letting him feel exactly how lonely I’d been when I woke up without him. Spent a few minutes running through memories of what it took to get a cure, to get back to River, all those moments in the path that ended my life here, and how many of them were anchored by Johnny. Let him feel it, experience it, soak in it for a moment, the incredibly profound his impact on my life had been, still was, even before he came back into my mind.

_“Alright, okay,” he whispered, his voice catching a bit. “I’d do again, V, no hesitation. But the last thing I want is me back in your head causing trouble for you. Need to get this done as fast as we can and put me back, preem?”_

“Yup.” I leaned over to River, giving him a quick kiss, but he didn’t let me go that easily. I knew Johnny might not like it, but I needed this, needed to know River was going to be okay. We broke apart a few minutes later, and I pressed my forehead to his. “Let’s nail this fucker.”

He nodded, the concern still raw in his eyes, but his expression was harder now. “I’m still chasing down the package from Joss’s, and Randy gave me a few points to see if we can trace a lead to the physical vault. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Looks like Han is willing to help. Kinda like old times.” 

“At least he’s not trying to bury it this time. Randy said there could be at least five NPCD engrams in Playhouse, and that’s only with what the preview showed us.”

“Yeah,” River said. “The cops are all over this one, so I’m hoping all the noise will help cover our tracks.”

“Good.” I finished my sandwich, gave him a peck on the lips. His hands lingered on my hips, squeezing gently. I grinned at him. “Johnny might be a voyeur, but I’m pretty sure you don’t want an audience. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me?”

River let go and rubbed his face, but then gave me a smirk. “Guess it depends on how long he’s around.”

_“You two are fucking ridiculous.”_


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

Johnny was so quiet during Randy and Nix’s Playhouse tour, I had to keep looking over my shoulder to make sure he was still there, and I hadn’t imagined my entire dive into Blackwall. He was though, all this was really happening – again – but his expression might as well have been stone. Didn’t say a word, didn’t ask any questions. Just soaked it all in.

“Let’s take a break,” I said, standing up and stretching my arms over my head. “Got a smoke, Nix?” 

He handed me one and his lighter, went right back to work. Randy yawned, rubbing his face. We all could use a break actually, but I knew none of us was really going to take one. River had pinged me about an hour ago, headed out to dig into a lead Han managed to pull up. 

I left them and wandered out to the patio, lighting up the cig and taking a deep drag.

“ _You smoke now? Barely did when I asked you to._ ” Johnny leaned over the railing beside me.

“I don’t, but it looked like you could use one after all that.” I waved my hand in the general direction of the tech hub. 

_“Can’t disagree.”_

“What’s your take, seeing it now?”

_“Bad as you suggested at Blackwall, bad as the feelings eating you alive about it.”_

“Can you get in?”

_“Getting in won’t be the issue. As long as you can get access to the main hub they’re working from.”_

I sighed. “Yeah, that’s the rub. Our current biggest problem, but I’m hoping we get something soon. River is chasing something new down as we speak, and the fixers I’m working with have their ears to the ground, running down everything they can.”

_“Rogue, too?”_

“Yeah, she’s leading the charge with me. Haven’t talked to her since…you know.” I looked at him. Just kind of motioned at his image.

_“Maybe wait for now.”_

“Your call, Johnny.”

He only nodded. I could tell he was deep in thought, could almost feel it in my own head, like static, but I couldn’t follow it. I realized he was moving faster now than before, the way his thoughts and ideas and everything flowed. Wasn’t sure if it was the lack of relic, or his time in Blackwall. Maybe both.

_“Other problems come in once we’re inside.”_

I tapped ash off the smoke, inhaled again. “We?”

_“Yup. Only way to offload me is for us both to step out of your brain, at least for a few minutes. Tech’s not really there for two engrams in the same brain. Once we’re out, though, you can jump right back into your body.”_

“And what? You’re just going to stay in there alone? Fuck that.”

_“Code won’t be able to hold me, not like the other engrams.”_

“You’re not worried at all something could go wrong? Trap you like the rest of them?”

_“If I didn’t have the knowledge Alt pumped into me right before we left Blackwall? Maybe, but you’d be coming to bust me out anyway.”_

“Glad you’re so confidant,” I said. “This whole biz has me fucking rattled.”

_“Feel that, too.”_

“Yeah, sorry. Been awhile, you know. Easy to forget.” I shifted a bit, frowning. “And I’m sorry. I think…this…I feel like this time I don’t have the same access to what you’re feeling as before. It…I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it sucks. Feels off, you know, compared to before.” I laughed. “As if the whole situation wasn’t fucking off, but you…”

_“Know what you mean, yeah.”_ He reached out to tap my forehead. I waved his hand away before he pretended to touch me. He gave me that shitty grin again. _“Don’t worry, wouldn’t want to go making your hubby jealous. Would be too easy.”_

“You think so, huh? I could take a good romp into some very, _very_ fond memories for you, if you need some confirmation he has nothing to worry about.”

_“Nothing to worry about? You only had my mind, V. That’s like watching a car drive by instead of riding it.”_

“That’s really subtle. And I saw plenty of your memories, thanks.”

_“And?”_

“And what?”

_“Lover boy really got something on me? He’s a fucking puppy.”_

I laughed. We’d had stupid conversations like these so many times when we were figuring out the relic. I never denied I’d wondered what it would have been like if we’d somehow met in the flesh. Had a few dirty dreams about him while he was in my head, too, which he barbed me about endlessly – though I never got confirmation if he’d made the dreams happen or not. Not sure how much of that was our minds tangling or what.

All that was before River, and Johnny had opted out both times we’d slept together with him in my mind, rather than ‘ride-along-cop-fuck’ as he’d so delicately liked to put it. But his demeanor about River was different now. I didn’t know if it was because he felt the love I had for River or if Johnny was just genuinely happy for me. 

I knew he was hearing my thoughts, so before he could make a smart remark striking down any possibility, I said, “For me? Yeah, Johnny, really he does.” Johnny rolled his eyes dramatically, so I added: “And River is no puppy when he fucks.”

Johnny laughed, really laughed. _“Maybe he should prove it.”_

I blinked, not sure what to say to that, not sure what I even thought about that, but then Johnny changed the subject, his tone shifting back to completely serious.

_“There’s another option with Playhouse, besides burning the bitch down. Now that I’ve seen it, if I’m accessing the central hub and I have enough time, I should be able to overwrite the access protocol.”_

“Meaning?”

_“Take control of Playhouse instead.”_

I shifted a bit, took another pull from the smoke. Tried to parse out what the statement made me feel and it was impossible. 

_“Not talking about what comes after yet. Only thinking we can move faster and remove some gates in our way. No extraction and no catch net. No moving the engrams or worrying about storage. Just turn Playhouse itself into the vault under our lock and key.”_

“And once we have control, at least they’ll be safe until we figure the rest out.” I exhaled, long and slow. “Why does this feel like a shit choice out of a bunch of shit choices?”

_“’Cause it is. Whatever we do, these engrams have no fucking clue the shitshow’s going on around them.”_

“It’s fucked.”

_“At least Arasaka got fucked.”_

I laughed and looked over him. There was that shit eating grin, of course. “You would find a way to work that into the conversation. Was that you or Alt?”

_“Oh, all me.”_ He crossed his arms, lifted his chin. _“All fucking me.”_

“Feel like I owe you a beer for that one.”

_“Just don’t corner me with more of your deep fucking feelings of gratitude, alright?”_

“No promises.” I dropped the smoke, about to go back inside when my holo pinged. Dino’s face popped up and my stomach dropped. I could already tell it was bad news by his expression, but I still asked, “Dino, how’s it going?”

_“Like shit, V. Not sure how, but my front is blown open. Seems the word on the street is I’m in bed with the NCPD to bring down a darknet hub. Nothing specific, but anyone who is in the know gets it.”_

“Shit.”

_“Shit,”_ Johnny echoed. 

_“Yeah,”_ Dino said. _“Not good, so for now I’m seeing if I can hunt down the leak.”_

My holo pinged again, this time a text. From Wakako. Just said: We need to meet, privately with an address and time attached. 

“I might have an idea. I’ll update you later,” I said with a sigh, closing the holo with Dino and pinged Wakako back I’d be there.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

_“Good to see this salty bitch hasn’t changed.”_

“Thank fuck for small miracles.”

Wakako had secured us a private room in the back of one of the nicer restaurants in Japantown. Food was set already, no wait staff nearby, and a quick scan showed no cameras, audio, bugs, nothing. 

She actually meant private, and that had me more hopeful than I wanted to be coming from her. She sat at the table’s head, which was way too large for the two of us, legs crossed and hands folded over her knee.

“I do appreciate your punctuality,” Wakako said. “It is a shame we do not do more work together these days.”

I sat down in the chair furthest from her, while Johnny paced around the room taking in the décor. This was weird – doing this again with him, out on the prowl. I shivered. To Wakako, I said, “Yeah, big shame. So why all the bullshit?” I gestured at the spread.

“I was hungry,” she said, dismissive, and helped herself to sushi from the turn table. “No need to let your temperament deprive you of a good meal.”

She was right, so I grabbed a few pieces myself, unable to deny she had good taste when it came to cuisine. Didn’t let it show, even when Johnny stopped walking to smack his lips, then point at a few pieces he wanted me to try. I added them to my plate. We ate for a few minutes in stony silence. 

“Why am I here, Wakako? Can’t be just for a dinner date.” 

“Indeed not. I imagine you already know that Mr. Dinovic is having problems securing the information he promised.”

“Wonder why.”

“I heard the news yesterday, which afforded me a fine opportunity. I have a meeting with the Playhouse creator the night after tomorrow to discuss client finding fees, darknet advertising and anything else he will need from me as his sole fixer going forward.”

I stood, the chair squealing across the floor behind me. “The fuck, Wakako?” Took all my restraint not to reach for the holster on my hip.

She didn’t flinch, took another bite before dabbing her lips with a fancy napkin. “What did you think would happen when you turned all the fixers against him? Luckily for us, our rocky relationship is a well-known quantity. He was quick to believe I was the only one not interested in your little witch hunt.”

“And if your son’s engram wasn’t at stake?”

“Does it matter?” She reached into her billowed sleeve, set a shard on the table between us. “I expect you have the means to follow through on all you’ve promised. To extract my son’s engram? Or am I wasting my time getting you access so quickly and efficiently?”

_“Take the shard, V_ ,” Johnny said.

Grinding my teeth, I picked crossed the space between us and picked up the shard, slotting it into my external reader. The schematics came flying up, the location literally right under our noses in the central district. As I ran through the data, it all started to make sense. 

When Arasaka crashed, it had been a flash fire, looting and rioting, and now the former tower was another skeleton, albeit without the memorial from Johnny’s nuke in the first attempt to bring the corporation to its knees.

I accessed the data Wakako had on the guy behind Playhouse next, the picture pulling up an unassuming, middle aged man who looked like he could be someone’s dad or uncle, not a fucking monster. 

“Mikal Adverson. So this shithead worked in Arasaka’s deep tech unit, and was on the Secure Your Vault team. Must be how he walked out the door with Soulkiller so easily.”

“He was one of the many leaks, yes. He also had access to hardware others did not, which explains his ability to backend a venture as complex as Playhouse in only a few years’ time.”

“How do you know this is the hub access?” I asked. “We’ve tracked him three times, and all those were transfer points for moving engrams, not the hub and vault. The only way to transfer out the engrams safely, without risk of data loss or corruption which he doesn’t seem to give a shit about, is through a direct link to the hub.”

“It was in my conditions for backing his venture. I required evidence this was a fully realized operation, through giving access to a netrunner of my choice to verify this, who will accompany me to this meeting.”

I kept the blueprints up, my mind already running infiltration. “You came to my meeting, listened to my plan, and immediately blew Dino wide open so you could take the lead.”

Wakako shrugged with one hand. “My only disappointment is none of the other fixers were willing to compete with me for it. Perhaps it is fortunate I don’t have all my eggs in the same basket, always relying on one merch to run all my gigs, legend or not. It is good to be reminded we cannot control everything, no matter how much we wish it so.” 

There was genuine bitterness in her tone, but I didn’t care. I wanted to fucking walk on her, take this shard and cut her loose, but I knew damn well it wouldn’t work. If I did that, the second I left this room she’d warn Adverson and it would be over. Night City wasn’t the only place to try and set up shit like Playhouse, and if he felt truly trapped, he’d bail, leaving us with no way to ever track down those engrams. 

I wondered if she’d be willing to sacrifice her son so easily.

_“Don’t doubt it_ ,” Johnny said. “ _And don’t walk away from this, as much as it burns your ass. This is exactly what we need to get me through the front door. Adverson would be an idiot to stay in Night City if this meeting fails.”_

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s do this. And all I want from you afterwards, Wakako? That we never work together again. Consider it my fee.”

“I accept your terms with delight.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short post today, big one coming up next time! <3

Randy and I were alone in the common room later that evening, each about three beers deep, when he finally said, “Are you really sure Johnny can pull this shit off?”

Johnny lounged on the couch next to me and looked up when he said this, peeling his aviators down to the point of his nose.

Randy waved the beer bottle. “I mean, Silverhand was a lot of things, but the dude was not a netrunner by any stretch of the imagination.”

“And you’ve been one what, three years now?”

“You know what I mean, V. Seriously. Even Nix thinks this is sketch as shit. Dumping the catch net? And extraction protocol on the word of a…” He suddenly stalled, pursing his lips, dropping his eyes.

“A construct? An engram?” I offered.

“V, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything.”

“I know, Randy,” I said gently. “To be honest, if it was Silverhand from the first time in my head? No, I wouldn’t believe it either. But he spent the last three years absorbing code from Alt Cunningham, not to mention what she offloaded on to him right before we came back from Blackwall. I think it’s our best shot.” I sighed, swirling the near empty bottle around. “And Wakako has fucked us into her time table anyway. Even if we tried, we can’t get everything we need together in a day and half to try the original plan.”

“What a bitch,” Randy mumbled. We clinked out bottles together. 

I glanced sideways at Johnny as I sank back into the couch. “No sass?”

Randy watched me, curious, knew I was speaking out load for his benefit.

_“Can’t blame the kid_ ,” Johnny said with a shrug. _“Already agreed the whole thing is a steaming pile._ ”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“What did he say?” Randy was on the edge of his seat now. With a laugh, I reached out and sniped the half drank beer from his fingers. “Hey!”

“You still haven’t learned anything from drinking with me, and we need you sharp not hung over. You’re cut off, nephew.” And I drained the rest of both bottles and set them on the table, putting my feet up and hands behind my head. I was done, too. Had no intention of getting more than the small buzz I had going now. 

“Whatever, Auntie V,” he said, then smothered a yawn. Watched me for a minute. “You doing okay.” Glanced at the empty couch next to me. “Uh, both of you?”

I grinned as Johnny walked away from Randy’s attention, even though he couldn’t see him flee. “Yeah, best as I can be. Johnny is fine, too, just not used to so many people giving a shit about him.”

Johnny gave me the finger, wandering as far away from me as our mental tether allowed to gaze out of the window. Sunset was rolling across the Night City, casting everything in gentle reds, which reminded me of a less horrifying version of Blackwall. Wondered if Johnny felt the same, but he didn’t give me any indication one way or another. 

My holo pinged; finally, an update from River.

**_Lead is looking good. Be back home in about an hour._ **

**_See you soon_**. I pinged back. “River’s on the way. Sounds like him and Han made some headway, though I’m wondering what that will mean now considering Wakako.”

Randy yawned again. “You can tell me in the morning. I’m beat.” He wobbled when he rose, gave me a dirty look when I grinned at him. I sank into the couch as he left. 

“Gonna nap,” I said to Johnny. “All good?”

He gave me a thumbs up and started humming a tune I hadn’t heard before. It was low and slow for him, and the gentle rhythm lulled me to sleep in minutes.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're a bit overdue for smut, yes? ;)

I woke to the couch sinking, a gentle, warm hand coming to rest on my rib cage. I smiled. Every once and awhile I recalled a time when being touched awake would have had me reaching for a gun or a knife. Now, I knew River’s touch like a second skin, and instead of jolting awake I lazily wandered toward wakefulness. 

His hand moved to rub up along my shoulder blades, coming to squeeze the back of my neck as he leaned in, lips brushing just under my ear. “Hey, beautiful.”

“Hey, handsome.” I stretched my arms over my head, then looped them around his neck as he leaned in for a kiss. A mix of slow and hungry, and I felt the sigh rumble through him as it unraveled some of the tension from his body. I wished we could just stay, just like this, forever.

_“Really is like some corny novel.”_

I laughed against River’s lips, having forgotten about Johnny in the moment between sleep and waking and River’s touch. He pulled back from me, a brow perked.

“Sorry, Johnny thinks we’re a badly written romance novel.”

River chuckled, leaned back a bit to give me space to sit up. I chased into him when he did, snuggling into his arms as they naturally fell around me. 

“You seem more relaxed. What happened with Han?”

“We have a solid lead for what might be the hub,” River said, and flicked the data over to me. As soon as I looked at it, I winced. “What?”

“It’s a decoy.”

He shifted on the couch, clearly annoyed, but he also knew I wouldn’t be flippant about this. “Care to explain?”

“After you left to meet Han, I talked with Dino and then met with Wakako.” I gave him the entire run down, including passing over the data shard Wakako gave me for him to scroll. He remained silent for most of it, only grunted in displeasure when I mentioned the part about both Johnny and myself needing to be offloaded into Playhouse, even if it might be only a few minutes for me. 

When we rounded back to the intel he’d gathered with Han today, he stood and started to pace. “We can still use the decoy.” 

River ran a hand over his scalp, arms flexing and drawing my attention despite the seriousness of the topic. Johnny scoffed in the background, and I refocused, trying to ignore the light flush creeping up my cheeks. Wasn’t exactly used to being called out for my ogling when River and I were alone…which we weren’t right now.

“Han will be pissed later, but the best bet might be to have them push forward. Plan a raid the same night as Wakako’s little meet and greet, and not be shy about it. Odds are there’s someone at the NCPD with dirty fingers over this. Might make them drop their guard, if they think the decoy is locked.”

“I like it,” I said. “Randy could work up some radio chatter files. Put some pings of me in the area before I head to city center. You can go with Han and—”

River moved to the couch, kneeling in front of me. “Not a chance. I’m on backup for this. Not risking what happened last time.”

He meant when I flatlined. I wanted to argue with him, but I could tell from the look on his face, the sternness in his voice, I wouldn’t win this one even if it was the better choice for him to go with Han. Still, I said, “Won’t Han get suspicious?” 

“We’ll figured out something.”

“Might cause trouble going forward with him.”

“I’ll deal with that if it happens. I’m not going to be on the other side of town for this, V. You already know that, so why are you arguing.”

“Not arguing, just walking through it, babe. I want you there,” I added, because it was true. Selfish, but true.

“Good,” River said as he slid back onto the couch, lifting me onto his lap. I settled in, head on his shoulder. We sat in silence for a few minutes, me listening to the steady drum of his heart now that we’d settled on a plan, his fingers running gentle circles along the nap of my neck. 

I leaned into his touch, the lightest shiver running across my skin. Made my mind start to wander. Been a rough two days. Loved the way his thigh muscle felt against mine, how I fit so perfectly against him, no matter how we were sitting…

_“Should just give him head already.”_

“What?!” I blurted, sitting up poker straight. River startled at my sudden movement, following my gaze to Johnny, who now sat on the couch across from us.

_“You heard me. You’re thinking about it and now I’m curious. Never felt what’s it like myself.”_

I managed to keep my thoughts in my head as I glared at him. _Why do I find it hard to believe you’ve never blown someone, Johnny?_

_“Didn’t say that, but I obviously haven’t as a woman. Could probably give you some pointers, too.”_

“Fucking hell, Johnny,” I said, aloud again. I gave River a quick glance, and seeing him amused and curious didn’t help the situation.

_“It’s your fucking fault. Christ, every time you look at him I’m smacked around by all these thoughts of you two fucking. I haven’t been in a body for three years, and now I’m back dealing with all your fucking hormones again. Why are you the one so desperate to be railed? You got laid two days ago. I haven’t gotten laid in fifty-three years.”_

I rubbed my face and sighed. River laughed. 

“What?” I said, suddenly annoyed at them both. 

“Not gonna fill me in? Seems like an interesting conversation.”

“Fuck, you too?”

Johnny threw back his head and laughed. 

I pointed at Johnny. “You, shut up.” To River. “You, not helping.”

River held up his hands as I stood up, but the smirk he was giving me… I wasn’t sure if I wanted to smack him or—

 _“Fuck him_ ,” Johnny so very helpfully finished the thought.

Then they both laughed, the fuckers, and River said, “Wow V, you’re _blushing_.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s like a bad narrator making fun of my thoughts and only I can hear it,” I bit out. River raised both eyebrows, but that smirk didn’t waver.

_“Doesn’t seem to be turning you off all that much. Feels like you might die if you don’t get that dick tonight…which is interesting. Maybe I shouldn’t have bagged out last time I was in your head. All I know about how a pussy feels from the output end is you rubbing one out when you thought I wasn’t watching.”_

_I might actually hate you_ , I thought to Johnny.

_“All this shit talk about River not being into it while I was in your head? You really fucking convinced yourself he wouldn’t be so you didn’t have to deal with what you thought about it, didn’t you? Had me convinced, too. But look at him. I think the man knows exactly what all this is about and he doesn’t look shy to me.”_

I glanced at River and I shouldn’t have. He was just watching me, his amusement clear, because of course he didn’t miss a damn thing even if he couldn’t hear Johnny, and I was fucking blushing from my ears to my toes at this point.

Johnny blinked in right next to me, squinting at my face, and I wanted to disappeared into the floor. 

_“Yeah, feels equal parts embarrassed and about to soak your panties over it.”_

“Jesus fucking Christ, Johnny! You know what I can’t believe I convinced myself of? That I missed having you in my fucking head!” I didn’t care anymore that I was yelling at him, that River was hearing it. 

_“Look, it’s too late now. Puppy over there—“_

“Stop calling him that.”

“Calling me what?” River asked, not even trying to keep the chuckle from his voice.

 _“Is ready to go. You’re ready for this and so am I, because you’re so fucking horny I can’t even think straight, and the longer this conversation is going on the worse it’s getting. Look, I promise I’ll shut up.”_ Johnny paused, then added, _“For a few minutes at least. And you always were better on a gig if you got yourself off the night before.”_

“You know what? I really do hate you. Do you feel the hate? Do you?” 

Johnny mouthed ‘bullshit’ at me, then returned to the couch across from River and flopped down, fully manspreading with both arms on the back of couch. 

“Babe?” River reached out and caught my hand. When I looked at him, all the smirking was gone, just the open love he had for me, because he understood how conflicted I was without even hearing half the damn conversation.

“Apparently Johnny wants to watch us fuck,” I said, with the tone of _there are you happy now_ but not sure who I was directing it at.

 _“Forgot to add ‘V wants Johnny to watch you two fuck,’”_ Johnny said at the same time River said, “Do you want him to?”

I blinked. Fuck, Johnny was right. River was into this idea. “Do _you_?”

“Why not. Make sure he knows who you belong to,” he answered without hesitation, then shifted his gaze to exactly where Johnny was sitting on the other couch across from him. “And maybe he’ll learn a few things.”

 _“Fat chance, puppy_ ,” Johnny shot back, grinning like the asshole he was.

“Wow, maybe you two should fuck then if it’s all about you guys,” I said. 

_“Not my style_ ,” Johnny said, then thoughtfully added, “ _Watching this play out, pretty clear we both like to be in charge too much for that to ever happen.”_

Before I could even process that, River said, “I’m joking, V. What makes me interested is how much the idea is getting to you. Water tower has been fun now and then, but I’m pretty sure no one has actually seen us.”

River stood, and I swallowed a few times involuntarily, my cheeks on fire, my eyes locked on his movements. I couldn’t make myself move away when he closed the gap and took my chin in hand, his touch feather light at the same time it commanded my full attention. 

“ _Jesus. Fucking. Christ._ ” There was actual surprise in Johnny’s voice. _“How much time I spent in your head and I had no idea you were this much of a fucking bottom.”_

“I’m…not.” Fucking hell, I sounded like such a liar because I was. At least when it came to River, which was all that really mattered.

“Not what?” River casually asked, his thumb tracing my bottom lip. Fuck. Then River said, in that particular fucking voice, “Tell me.”

Fuck. _Fuck_. God _damn it_. And I answered in a whisper, because I couldn’t stop myself. “He said he had no idea I was such a bottom.”

Miraculously, Johnny didn’t say anything right then, and when I glanced at him, he was unreadable and still. As if he sensed the weight of the moment.

River turned my face back to his. “Babe, we’re never doing anything you don’t want to do.”

“I know.”

He kissed my forehead, all the dominance in his posture and voice evaporated, back to a puppy as Johnny so liked to put it. 

Who was I fucking kidding? 

After dealing with Johnny’s unrivaled arrogance for so long before we separated at Mikoshi? Having to listen to the endless complaining about me fucking a cop when he ducked out and missed how good the fucking was? Even if he dipped the second time because he knew I needed the privacy, but that was besides the fucking point. How he’d been barbing me since the moment he was back in my head? 

I was starting to wonder if _Johnny_ liked the idea so much he was pushing it on me, but we weren’t dealing with the relic this time. I could barely sense him, so unlike the first time, even though his connection to me seemed more intense this go around. 

And then there was River, who knew me so well without ever spending a moment inside my mind. Waiting for my lead before he ripped control away from me, just like I was begging for.

They were both assholes I decided without malice, maybe even affection. But it didn’t change that this was fucking turning me on even if I didn’t fully understand why.

 _“Probably because some of my arrogance did rub off on you, V.”_ Johnny said with a chuckle, but then his tone became surprisingly gentle. _“All joking aside, what I’m picking up? You have this weird chance to show someone else exactly how deep this connection you have with the love of your life runs.”_ Then he chuckled again, right back to asshole. _“Or maybe it’s not that deep at all, and you just like the idea of someone watching you get your brains fucked out, who knows. Not like I can run around telling anyone about it so it’s a pretty safe way to test out the idea. But I do know there’s the very, very clear piece of you that wants to be able to tell me I told you so.”_

I rolled my eyes. 

_“And you still desperately want that dick in your mouth. So why don’t you be a good girl and show me how it’s done._ ”

My mind warred briefly between being absolutely in no way shape or form about to be bossed around by Johnny Silverhand in bed, before it skipped around to what was actually happening, and why it sent a jolt through my middle. Because he wasn’t telling me what to do to _him_. He was playing directly into exactly what I wanted from River, while feeding into my desire to make River squirm for me before he took the reins and never let me escape again. 

“I want to,” I said to River, and dropped to my knees, hands working his belt. 

He let out a small grunt of surprise, but then his fingers were tangled in my hair, and I pushed him back so he sat on the couch. He kicked off his shoes and together we got him out of all his clothes, and my fingers traced his exposed thigh muscles. He was completely aroused already, which made me tremble as I reached him.

He caught my hand. “I want you do this for me naked.”

_“Preem idea.”_

My nerves fluttered again at Johnny’s voice, even though he’d seen me naked plenty of times when we’d shared a mind before. But he’d ever seen me naked in a sexual situation, I smirked to myself as I stood, honing in on more about what was getting me excited. Well, unless I counted rubbing one off, as he so nicely put it, and I probably _maybe_ … yes, I’d gotten a little – a lot of – satisfaction knowing he’d been watching and feeling it when I did. 

I knew River couldn’t get enough of me, but I would never get enough of the way he watched me as I slowly took the tank top off over my head and let it fall to the floor. The way River’s breath hitched a little bit as I undid the button to my pants, then slowly pulled the zipper down, making him wait for what he wanted. How long it took me to slip my pants and underwear all the way down and off. My heart raced as River’s eyes stayed locked on mine as I lowered to my knees again, my hands climbing along his thighs again, teasing around his hips. 

Didn’t miss the intake of breath from Johnny either, because I didn’t exactly need to lift my ass in the air the way I did, or arch my spine just so, but knowing another set of eyes were on me? Why the fuck not.

I took River in my mouth, running my tongue along him, savoring the way he tensed at the initial contact before melting deeper into the couch. He didn’t moan, not yet, but his breath strained as his fingers played with my hair. Not pushing my head down, just there to help me know what he liked best.

I teased him with my teeth, with my tongue, my lips, enjoying the way his breathing gradually got heavier. Sucked a little harder to get a low, rumbling growl from him, delighting in the feel of his pulse against my tongue. 

_“Puppy likes this gentle, huh?”_

I didn’t interrupt my attention to River, shot back silently: _As much as I enjoy teasing him like this._

 _“Take him deeper, all the way back into your throat. See what he thinks of that.”_ I could hear his smirk.

But I didn’t hesitate, plunged all the way down until I gagged a little, and was rewarded with River’s fist clenching into my hair and a sharp whispered, “ _Fuck_...”

_“See. Better before careful or he’s gonna come in your mouth. You should see his face right now.”_

I flicked my gaze up and Johnny was right, so I focused on continuing this new motion, and within seconds, River was squirming, his hips rising to meet my mouth, diving further into my throat. It took me a minute to find a movement that didn’t gag me, and once I did, he let out a long moan for me, which made me clench and shiver again.

“V…damn…” His fingers scrapped against my scalp, and it sent an unreasonable thrill through me, how hard he was fighting himself not to ram my head down, which garnered a small chuckle from Johnny.

_“He’s got more restraint than I’d have right now. Gotta admit, you look pretty fucking hot like this.”_

It shouldn’t have, but the unabashed compliment from Johnny Silverhand of all people rippled through me, a soft moan passing my lips, which made River’s hips jerk, which made Johnny give a small grunt. Which made me shudder again, almost violently. 

Shit, I wanted more of that cascading affect. 

_Get on the other side of River_ , I thought to Johnny.

_“The fuck, you suddenly bossy?”_

_It won’t last, hurry._

“ _Christ_ ,” he muttered, and as I looked up, River’s head thrown back, his body taunt and mine, Johnny settled himself onto the barstool. Leaned back, slowly taking his aviators off. I grinned only for myself, and gave River a few more very intense seconds in my mouth, my nails digging into his thighs, before I let him go and stood.

River gave a rough exhale and jerked his head up, his jaw tight as I climbed up on the couch to straddle him. Gave a long, slow slide across his length with my slick slit as I rose fully to my knees. One of his hands cupped my ass, his other sliding up my chest until it came to rest on my throat as I hovered above him, all thoughts of Johnny evaporating as River touched me.

_“Not so fast, not letting you forget I’m here. Not after all you’ve had is a dick in your mouth. Thought you had something to show me.”_

I shuddered again as both River and Johnny watched me. I stayed still and so did River, as he waited to see what I was going to do. I knew he could feel my pulse thundering under his fingers, my wet heat not even an inch from smothering him. 

I shifted, closing my eyes and lining River’s tip up against me, slowly gliding down to the hilt, letting myself savor the sensation of him stretching me with agonizing slowness, the feeling of him filling me, letting the gasping groan rip out of me without restraint. Pressed both my fists in to River’s chest, reveling in the way his muscles moved with me as I rose my hips just as slowly, and rolled them down again in a long, slow slide. 

“Taking your time? Teaching him how good it feels to have me inside you, babe?” River’s voice made me clench around him and whimper, and his husky chuckle as he brought his mouth next to my ear made me gasp in reply. “Feeling how worked up you have me. How hard I am for you, for only you.”

He squeezed and pulled at my ass, assisting the drawn out, rolling motions of my hips, pushing himself deeper with each thrust. Then he tightened his grip on my throat, eliciting a low whine from me, and said, “Gonna show him what you look like when I make you come?” His teeth caught my neck. “For the first time of the night?”

My eyes fluttered open when I bucked my hips a few times unevenly, Johnny still seated on the barstool, but his posture was far more tense now, his expression…something. I held his gaze for a moment, but then River’s hand left my ass so his fingers could attack my clit. 

“Fuck,” I whispered, my forehead falling against River’s, but he shook his head.

“Up tall, let me look at all of you. Let him see it too, how fucking beautiful you are when you lose yourself for me.”

I arched my back, holding onto his shoulders, finding it harder and harder to concentrate as his fingers started picking up the pace, tingles running out from my core, my body climbing for his demands. 

_“You heard the man. Let’s see it, V_ ,” Johnny said, his voice rough.

I opened my eyes, finding and holding Johnny’s gaze as I grinded River harder and harder into me, his fingers driving my body from tingles to crashing, crushing waves around him. Moans erupted from me, ragged and hoarse as River bit down on my shoulder, marking me, owning me, as I came violently around him. 

My motions stalled out, my breathing coming out in pants, River still rock hard inside me. But he didn’t move aside from brushing the hair back from my face and supporting my body. 

River gave me an appraising grunt. “What to do you with you now?” My eyes flicked from River to Johnny, and River laughed. “The dirty old man have a request?”

Fuck, how could I be blushing more after that, but I was. Johnny sat with his arms crossed now. All I got from him was low static, same as since he’d come back into my mind, but something about it felt more electric. The silence stretched a few heartbeats, the only noise my own ragged breathing. 

_“You keep talking about how good he fucks you, but all I’ve seen is you getting yourself off on his dick_ ,” Johnny said with a shrug and his customary smirk, but his voice wasn’t as steady as normal. 

I wanted to pick at him, ask him how it felt, because I knew damn well every orgasm I had with River was better than anything I could do for myself, anything he might have snooped on before. But because he was talking about River fucking me, while I was still sheathed around him, while I could feel the dangerous patience and control in River, waiting to unleash on me? I could only whimper, shuddering again, clenching around River as my head fell on his shoulder. 

“He wants you to fuck me,” I whispered.

He ran his hand up my neck to push my face back, to make me look into him, his eyes giving me that hooded gaze that made my knees weak. “Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” I breathed the words. “River, _please_ …”

He lifted me from him with no effort, setting him on my knees beside him before he moved from stand behind me, running his hands along my ribs and then my arms, placing my hands on the back of the couch. “He still standing over there?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He ran his hands back down along my arms, my shoulders blades, tracing the curves of my hips, before his fingers dug into the flesh of my ass. Felt him press against my slit, before he thrust himself fully inside me, hard. God, the sound I made when he did. I bit my lip, but it was already out in the air, and I could feel River twitch inside me as he held still for a fraction of a second – damn, he was amped up – before he started hammering into me.

I clung to the couch, arching my back and taking him deeper, pushing my hips back into his with each stroke, my body still shaking. His fingers dug into my hip bones, and he lifted one hand to dig his nails into my back, which made me arch further into him and groan out his name.

Then his hand was on my throat, flattening my back against his chest, his thrusts going shallower, slower. Fuck, the feeling of his entire body flush against mine... 

His teeth nipped at my shoulder, my neck, and he demanded, “Again.”

I didn’t hesitate, bringing my fingers down to play with myself as he kept his movements fast but shallow, teasing me by almost but not quite slipping out of me with each stroke. Fuck, I was rising again already, barely any effort, barely any time, and I felt myself blushing again when I opened my eyes and saw Johnny. 

His arms were crossed, looser now, his eyes raking over my body, between my bouncing chest, my fingers, River’s length stroking into me. 

_“Fuck are you waiting for? Give it to him.”_

Fucking hell, I came as soon as the words left his mouth. I tried to fall forward but River held me up, reaching around with his other hand to grab my fingers and grind them faster when I started to lose focus, making the edge crash harder, and then even harder when River whispered in my ear, “You feel so fucking good.”

As soon as I came down, my mind still scattered, River slipped out of me and moved us to the floor, the tile cold against my back. I didn’t have time to catch my breath, didn’t have time to think, his hands pinning my wrists to the floor as he buried himself inside me again, attacking at a furious pace. But he rolled his hips as he did instead of just pounding into me, grinding against my overstimulated clit with his pelvis with each motion. I squirmed. I wailed and moaned, and he pulled another orgasm out of me in under a minute. 

“River, fuck, _River!_ ” I couldn’t stop whimpering his name as he left go of my arms in the middle of me crushing around him, changing his position so he bury himself deeper, bottoming out, again and again, finishing himself off with a deep rumbling groan. 

We just laid there for a few minutes, both panting and breathless, my entire body feeling like it would just float away from me if River wasn’t on top of me. He placed a few gentle kisses along my neck where he’d squeezed, his breath warm on my skin.

_“Alright, you win. Man definitely doesn’t fuck like a puppy. You though? Christ, V. Not for me, but I can feel why you’re a bottom after that.”_

I grinned, turning my head to find Johnny laid out on the couch, cig in hand and blowing out a long plume of smoke. When I winked at him, he didn’t even roll his eyes.

“Everyone enjoy themselves?” River asked, lips still against my skin.

“Mhm,” was all I managed in reply.


	22. Chapter 22

_Felt like walking down a long hall, but the floor wasn’t solid. I wasn’t swimming, wasn’t floating. I was just existing, moving through…something. No lights. No sound. Empty, but at the same time, full to the edges, brimming to overflowing. If the edges existed at all._

_Then I felt a tug._

_“Johnny?”_

_His voice seemed to occupy the same space as mine. “Still here, yeah.”_

_“What’s going on?”_

_“Pretty sure you’re dreaming.”_

_“Oh.” I guess that made sense. “Why can’t I see anything?”_

_“Maybe because I don’t sleep?”_

_I frowned. I mean, I tried, but I wasn’t even sure I had a face right now. “Did you last time you were in my head?”_

_“Yeah, when you did, I followed right behind. Not talking about you knocking out, just normal sleep. I think because we were more interwoven last time around. Remember you – well, us I guess – having some pretty filthy dreams about me.”_

_“You’re such a fucking dick.” I blinked a few times – tried to – but nothing changed. “What is happening now then, if you don’t sleep anymore?”_

_“Just here, you know, running through the numbers. Checking everything over. Making sure we’re set.”_

_“Getting ready for Playhouse tomorrow, then?”_

_“Yeah. Don’t want to cock this up for you, V. Don’t want you to get cocked up from having me back in your head.”_

_“Better this time around so far. No headaches, no nose bleeds. I mean, I’d even say you’re more tolerable this time around. Probably whatever of me rubbed off on you by the time Alt separated us.”_

_“Probably.”_

_I frowned again, even if it couldn’t be a visible thing. Tried to find a hand to reach for him, but nothing happened. “Hey, you okay?”_

_“Preem. Get some rest, V.”_

I shifted against River with a sharp exhale, my mind drifting into consciousness for a moment. I tried to anchor my thoughts, trying to pull out a dream I couldn’t hold onto under the fog of being only half awake. River grumbled against me, arm snaking around my middle and tugging me closer, and I drifted back to unaware, the rest of the night passing dreamless.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

“Run me through the whole loadout one last time, V,” Viktor said. He sat at the makeshift med station we’d cobbled together, his arms crossed. We’d been settled in about a block away from Wakako’s meeting place for few hours, time taking forever to tick down to evening.

I sighed. We’d been through this ten times already.

Both Nix and Randy were buried deep in their portable net stations. River was pacing holes in the floor between calls with Han. They were about to start the NCPD raid on the bait location, and Han was getting increasingly agitated that River and I weren’t there yet. We’d made a cover story about kicking down an unrelated kidnapping. River updated as if we were still in the middle of a chase, but it sounded this was the final call. Han was about to launch the raid.

Johnny sat on the window ledge, unusually quiet.

“V?” Vik reached out to touch my elbow.

“Yeah?”

“Come on, run it down for me.”

In Vik’s defense, this was the most complicated loadout I’d ever used. And it was only my life on the line if I fucked up.

I gave him a nod, swallowed a few times. I wore the same netrunner suit from my last encounter with the Playhouse asshole – Mikal Adverson, I reminded myself. Wanted to know who I was gonna off for this shit – but it had been even more heavily modded for this dive into Playhouse.

I patted the canister on my left hip, tubbing running the entire length of the suit. “Liquid nitrogen. Tap the release valve before I jack in. It’ll circulate, keep my body cool while I’m inside Playhouse since I won’t have an ice bath.”

I patted my chest. “Second and third heart in place, with the third heart only set to trigger if the second is burned through and my organic heart isn’t functioning properly.”

River was off the holo, watching me with an unreadable expression.

I cleared my throat. Patted my right thigh, another small tank fastened there with clear tubing and a nasal feed. “Oxygen. Put it on my nose and turn it on, also before jacking in.” Held up my wrist, pointed to the watch. “Start the timer on the watch, which I’ll project as on my wrist inside Playhouse.”

“How long do you have?” Vik asked.

“Three minutes is the goal. Four minutes is pushing it, anything beyond five and I’m risking irreparable brain damage.”

River rubbed his face and turned away, focusing out the window. He didn’t know it, but he’d walked up right next to Johnny, both of them gazing in the same direction. Randy and Nix had stopped working, listening to our exchange now.

“Adrenaline shot and MaxDocs, just in case,” I said, patting pockets in turn along the suit. “Jolt salts if I’m feeling hazy when I first pop back into my skull, and I need to remember to turn off the liquid nitro and hit the inline heater so I’m not freezing my ass off. And Lizzie. And a big ass knife.”

Vik managed a half smile. It looked pained.

“Look, I’m fine. I’m only dropping in long enough to offload Johnny, then I’ll dip back out and let him work. I’ll hit the three-minute mark, easy.”

My holo pinged. Wakako from a burner link. She was in route.

“It’s time,” I said.

Both River and Johnny turned to face me. My stomach flipped a few times as I closed the gap and River crushed me in a tight hug. He kissed the top of my head, his heart racing when I rested my head on his chest.

“Come back to me.”

“Always.” I kissed him, softly and brief. It was painful to pull away from him, and I didn’t look at anyone as I walked out the door. When it closed behind me, I leaned against the wall for a minute, barely keeping myself from shaking.

I felt a warmth on my upper arm, turned my head to see Johnny, his hand resting on my bicep. Didn’t have the weight it used to back with the relic, but he’d managed some kind of stimulation in my brain so I felt the touch.

“Thanks,” I whispered. “Let’s go.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

**_All good_** I shot over text once I was in position. Going through the sewer really wasn’t my idea of a good time, but this was the best path we’d found in. **_Wakako pull up yet?_**

_“Not yet,”_ Randy said over the audio link. “ _She’s due in about fifteen based on that ping, should give you plenty of time to get to the access.”_

**_On my way_ **

I moved through the tunnel easily, all signs pointing to the area being used for only a sewer pipe. Could have done without the gray water up to my knees, though.

“Should just be glad it’s not shit,” Johnny said. His voice echoed in the tunnel, sounded like he was right there next to me, and even looked that way when I turned on him. I watched his legs as moved through the water, but of course he didn’t cause ripples. “You good, V?”

I shook my head. _Yeah_ , I thought to him. _Just want to get this right._

“We will.”

We moved through the line in silence after that. I scanned as we moved, and we reached the grate without any trouble. I was a little shocked, considering our last encounter at the warehouse, but our intel was good. None one had accessed this entry way in what looked like years.

We reached the access ladder, a quick visual showing no signs of explosives. I took a deep breath, checked all my equipment one last time and ascended. The grate at the ladder’s top was welded shut, but we’d prepared for that. I took a small pocket torch and set to work.

_“Hey V.”_ Randy said over comes. _“River wanted me to tell you he finally got a lead on the package from Joss’s.”_

**_Hit me_ **

_“It bounced about fifteen times, but Rogue was able to get a more accurate tracking hit.”_

**_River asked Rogue? Must have been bad on his end_ **

Randy laughed. _“Says he doesn’t want to talk about that, but get this. The package was might have been scrubbed, but turns out it originated out of Jig-Jig Street on a burner box.”_

The same thing fixers used for getting gig info to mercs without risking a trace. My hand clenched around the torch. 

_“There’s also a locale down there that sells the same kind of digital card stock. They even had the right font, but River said there are at least three other places in the city with the same, so he couldn’t pin it on just that.”_

**_Is he saying what I think he is?_ **

_“All he’s saying now is put it in your back pocket, V. Wakako just arrived with her netrunner. No one else, as planned. They’re walking up to the building now.”_

I burned through the last hinge and tucked the torch away. **_Keep me updated, just got access_**

_“You got it, V. You’re coming in on the second sub-basement. Head north and you should find the HVAC access, like we talked about. Up a floor puts you right in the hot room – best guess we have for the server access. Be careful.”_

**_Going in_ **

“That’d be some balls on the bitch,” Johnny said. “Asking for help with her son and threatening you at the same time?”

_Yup_ was all I shot back to him, trying to keep my fuse burning instead of exploding. I couldn’t do that, couldn’t lose my cool. Too much was at stake.

I moved through the ducts and vents, much easier to bust into than the sewer grate, and I felt the temperature rise dramatically when I hit the main basement. My heart jumped around like a caged bird.

“Need to calm that shit down, V. Only gonna make it harder on you to dive,” Johnny said, naked concern in his voice.

_If it does, it does. Let’s fucking get this shit done._

I felt Johnny’s electric hand on my shoulder again and he squeezed. “I’m not burning you out to save people I never met in my fucking life. Not leaving your family without you because I couldn’t get you to calm your shit.”

_I’m fine._

“I’m in your head. You’re not fucking fine. Take a few deep breaths so we can do this right.”

I finally turning to face him as I leaned my head against the duct. Johnny looked like he always had, same damn outfit, same stupid sunglasses. They winked away at my thought and I smirked at him. The hell did he want me to do? Misty’s breathing exercises?

“Stop thinking about Misty’s breathing exercises and just fucking do them already. Christ, your so fucking stubborn.”

_I think I inherited some of it from you._

“Bullshit. You were a stubborn bitch the moment I woke up in your head. Now breath in and breath out, or whatever yoga shit you need to do.”

I rolled my eyes but settled in, letting Misty’s lessons climb up and taking those deep long breaths through my nose, out through my mouth. My heart gradually slowed, the burning in my blood settling to a more manageable level. I went past three, past five, felt Johnny’s tension unspool beside me.

_You could have just said you need to meditate too, asshole. Nervous?_

“Not at all. Let’s roll.”

_“V?”_ Randy’s voice came in low. _“They’re talking upstairs, but doesn’t seem like it’s going to last much longer. Wakako is getting impatient. You in position yet?”_

**_Almost_ **

I gave Johnny a final nod and he let go of my shoulder. I shimmied forward, unlatching the duct gate and peering upside down into the room.

Definitely the right place. Server farm, the room packed edge to edge with towers. Annoyed me, again, that’d he’d been hiding in such plain sight. Annoyed me more than he had been uploaded his engram victims off site with no regard to the data damage they’d suffer without being directly jacked in to the Playhouse vault.

“Easy, V.”

I took a single deep breath in and out, and refocused my attention on scanning without pinging, just in case anything was trapped this time around. Didn’t see any cameras, which was odd. Damn good luck this building was attached to the old sewer lines. I wasn’t sure how else we could have gotten in undetected.

“Any port will do it,” Johnny said. “Look over there to the left? We can tuck your body back there while we dive, shouldn’t be able to see it from anywhere.”

A quick sweep confirmed his idea as a solid one, but my eyes lingered on the chairs in the room’s center, with BD wreaths and jacks primed.

Saw that teenager again, winking out right in front of me.

_“V, they’re coming down the stairs, move it,”_ Randy said over coms _._

I heard the door open as I dropped to the floor, flattening on my belly and army crawling to the back corner of the room. I being buried in all the computers had me sweating already, but I wouldn’t have to worry about it for long. Voices floated over as I settled into position, settling onto my back.

Wakako was in mid-sentence. “…won’t do to keep things here. The NCPD will crack down after they fail at your dummy location.”

“I have three more set up, and a fourth under construction. Might be best to lay low for a few weeks in terms of new uploads. We have plenty of variety for this initial launch,” Adverson said.

It chilled me, hearing him again. All I’d ever heard before was his mocking ‘Better.’ Hearing him talk now was way worse, because he sounded like he could be anyone you’d pass on the street, which was probably why he’d been so successful.

When I shifted my weight, ready to peek around the computers, Johnny pushed me down and shook his head. Pointed to the nearest jack. _“Gotta time it so you dump us in as soon as her netrunner links up so they don’t notice.”_ He sounded in my head again instead of beside me. His lips didn’t move when he spoke either. I sunk back down.

“Regardless, we will focus our efforts on a more permanent solution if you desire my continued support in this venture,” Wakako went on.

“Of course I do, Wakako. I have to say though, I’m glad we’re working together again. It’s been too long.”

“It never could be long enough,” Wakako corrected and Adverson chuckled. “I need verification I’m not wasting my time here.”

“You’ve been inside Playhouse already,” Adverson said. “Really didn’t find it enough? The experience.”

“The experience is excellent. I want to see the back end, as I told you already. I need to know this investment will hold.” She must have been talking to her netrunner when she said, “Go on, connect and talk me through what you see.”

Feet shuffled around, creak of old leather on the netrunner chair.

I slip the oxygen tube into my nostril and started the liquid nitrogen, shivering as soon as the suit filled, my core temp already dipping. Johnny stood above me, arms crossed, watching out into the room. As I fought to keep my teeth from chattering, I still found myself fascinated by how much we’d never understand about sharing a mind.

Johnny held up three fingers.

Two.

One.

I hit the watch timer and jacked us in, trusting Johnny to do the rest.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

I blinked and that was it. Everything was different. I was standing in a plain white hallway. It was narrow, only big enough for one person coming and one going, and lined with unmarked doors. Maybe most notably, the temperature was perfect.

I checked my hands, turned them back and forth, the watch projected on my wrist as planned.

“Johnny?” My voice echoed, seemed to echo forever. “I think we’re in?”

A grunt came from behind me, and turned to find Johnny, but not as I expected. He was crumpled on the floor, his head in his hands.

“Johnny, what’s going on?” I crossed the space between us and knelt, hand on his shoulder, and he shuddered under my touch. I jerked my hand back, surprised to find it damp with sweat, the heat of his skin completely human. “Are you okay?”

He still didn’t move, his breathing ragged, and I took a deep inhale myself to try and calm down all the fears of what could go wrong. I lifted his face to look at me.

His cheeks were damp with tears, his pupils blown wide. He grunted again, both hands snatching out to grab my wrist. Johnny burrowed his face against my hand, inhaling my skin, his lips brushing my palm before he rubbed his cheek against it again. He was shaking.

It was so fucking intimate and from anyone else I would have jerked away. This wasn’t something I shared with anyone but River, yet I stayed still. I trusted Johnny, knew he wasn’t trying to seduce me, or attack me, or anything like that. All I saw and felt was desperate, raw need.

“Johnny, talk to me.”

“Did a good job,” he said in a broken whisper. “With this place. Feels real, feels…like I’m alive.”

“You are alive,” I said gently. “Same as me. You know that. Engrams are alive, that’s why we’re here in the first place.”

“This is…was different, when I took over your body. I felt things, but not mine. Not like this.” He shuddered again, still gripping my wrist so hard it was starting to hurt. “I feel…shit, I feel…”

I crawled down on the floor next to him and pulled him into a hug. At first he hesitated, then crashed around me, clinging to me like I was the only thing anchoring him.

“Didn’t think about this part,” he whispered.

“It’s okay. Take a minute.”

Johnny held me tighter for just a few seconds, then abruptly pushed back from me and stood. He shivered again and then everything disheveled about him snapped back into place, his aviators materializing back in place.

“Don’t have a minute, V.” He pointed at my watch.

“Fuck, Johnny we can take two seconds to make sure _you_ are okay.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just…hit me hard. Time?”

I glanced down. “It…the fuck? The time hasn’t changed.”

“What I thought. Could feel it when we came in, in the code. The whole place is frozen, only thing active at any time is a room once someone loads up an engram to play.”

I winced. “They’re in stasis until they’re jumped between fucked up fantasies. That’s…shit, I don’t know if that’s worse or better.”

“Just glad my adjustments are covering you, otherwise you’d be frozen like the rest.”

“Adjustments…Johnny, what does that mean?”

He shook his head, ignoring my question. I realized I was watching code roll by on his aviators, mirrored against his eyes.

“Your body is counting the time, though. Everything is still moving normal in the real world.” He looked down the hallway. “The netrunner is in, about ten doors down loading up a simulation with an engram.”

I reached for my gun – which I didn’t have – then growled. I could see the glowing door down the hall. Johnny caught my arm before I could move.

“Need them distracted. Eggs, omelet.”

“It’s a fucking person, Johnny.”

“Who will be stuck here getting fucked sideways forever if I can’t get this shit done.”

He was right. I closed my eyes, walked in a small circle. “How long do I have left? Can I help you somehow?”

“About a minute left on your clock.” He glanced at me with a sheepish grin. “And you already did, V. Never would have thought a program would need a hug to do it’s fucking job.”

“You’re not a program, damn it.”

“Am right now and this fucker’s code is givin’ Alt a run for it. He’s been busy, but I’m tearing it down, bit by bit. Gonna take me a few minutes to take control.”

I tried to keep myself still, hugging my middle. “But you can do it?”

He gave me that shit eating grin. “I can.”

“That mean I can I kill Adverson when I bounce out?”

“By all means.”

I grinned back. I was about to ask him what came next, when the netrunner’s door flared nova – the color shifting and bending and landing on a deep crimson. “What the fuck is that?”

Johnny didn’t move, the code scrolling faster behind his glasses. “Soulkiller on the netrunner.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Wakako just let him kill her netrunner?”

Johnny nodded.

And then he sprouted a fucking second set of arms. He took three steps forward and drove all four of his arms into the wall up to his elbows. “Tightens the time table, that’s all. Gonna have to bust the rest of the way in before they realize something’s wrong.”

My stomach flipped – or something. When I glanced down, my fingers were almost entirely transparent. “Johnny?

“Three minutes coming up.”

“Yeah, but I can stay to five. What the hell is going on?”

“The subroutine I installed to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid. You kinda need that brain of yours, V. Not letting you fuck it up again.”

“You _installed_ something on my…my engram? On _me_?”

“A tether, keeps you anchored to your body. If your body goes into distress, it yanks you back clean, no side effects. Pretty easy thing, just had to do it while you were sleeping.”

“You fuck, Johnny! This is bullshit!”

“You can yell at me later.”

And then I was falling.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

And then I was _fucking freezing_.

 _“V,”_ Randy was in my ear the second I opened my eyes. _“I know this is rough, but you gotta keep quiet and still.”_

My entire body quaked, shivering against the cold swirling my suit and the absolute rage I was feeling, and it hurt to bend my arm around to slap the nitro off. I tapped the heater next, each inhale burning my lungs. My fingers were numb as I opened the small pocket on my chest, pulling out the jolt salts. I broke the packet, inhaled hard, and my whole body jerked. My head went clear, the haze peeling back.

Then I gagged. Jolt salts were fucking disgusting. I’d be tasting battery acid in the back of my throat for a week.

“ _That was three minutes on the dot, nice job. Does Johnny have things locked yet?”_

 ** _Not yet_** I texted back. **_But they just turned the netrunner into a fucking engram so he’s breaking in hard now._**

 _“The actual fuck,”_ Randy muttered, then he was back to business. _“Vitals look good, V. Just give the heater a second. Your audio feed is picking everything up. Looks like they’re still talking, watching the results. No sign anything is weird yet.”_

I suppressed a groan as I rolled over onto my stomach and slipped the tube from my nose. I hunched up on my knees, my head spinning, my entire body feeling loose around my mind. No, it was just from diving, I was fine.

Or I was suffering from some kind of fucking update fatigue. When this was over, I was going to log into Playhouse just to kick the shit out of Johnny. Subroutine my fucking ass. With a silent growl, I slipped Lizzie loose, resting my head against a computer tower for warmth as I tried to hear the conversation.

“See? No data loss on the direct connection. Not that it really matters, but in terms of other applications, Soulkiller is still running at full promised capacity. Secure Your Soul can still be an option,” Adverson was saying.

“And the simulation?” Wakako asked.

“Whatever you want it to be. I can custom build an entire vault, just for you and your family members. When you’re ready, we can engram you, and then load you back up into your body. Or you can do a Lizzy Wizzy and go full chrome. Jump back and forth as you like. I can link you into net and dark net access, virtually without limits,” Adverson went on, and I could hear him pacing as he spoke, his dress shoes clicking against the concrete floor. “Will be expensive, but I’m sure you can handle my fees.”

“I am certain we can come to an agreement,” Wakako replied.

I was fucking _done_. I stood. “Yeah, I’m gonna have to go with fuck you and fuck that.”

I fired once, the headshot clean, and Adverson dropped with a wet smack. I was still shivering, but while Wakako was a lot of things, a fighter wasn’t one of them.

“You,” I said, flicking Lizzie her direction. “Sit the fuck down.”

She obliged, folding her hands neat and tidy in her lap, but I could read the fury clear as day. I closed the gap slowly, mostly to hide I was still cold as fuck, unwilling to let her sniff out any weakness on me.

Wakako sighed at me like I was some unruly child. “This is your big plan? To kill the only man who can take care of this situation?”

“This situation?” I shook my head. “This shitshow you mean. Jesus, Wakako, your son is in there.”

She shrugged. “He might be, he might not. It really does not matter.”

“Because all you really want is to be immortal?”

“And?” She held my gaze. Never wavering, never faltering. “I did not want the puny immortality Arasaka offered. To sleep indefinitely until they devised a better future? No. What I wanted is what this man was offering us. A digital afterlife. True immortality. And you act as if this is just about me.”

“Say I even buy that, you couldn’t think of a better test than this shit?” I snapped.

“No, but eddies run the world, my dear. To finance this, we would need to be liquid, require the staying power of a corporation, and Arasaka has fallen. Militech will never rise to this, and the up and coming lack the right motivation. What we need is a change. To put the Night City in better hands, in the hands of those who truly understand how this city works.”

I kept my gun pointed at her. “Your hands?”

“It would never be mine alone, but it could very well be our hands, V.”

I laughed at that.

“Is that so impossible a proposition?” She raised her brows. “Night City will always have the underbelly and the darknet. If not this,” she motioned to the Playhouse computers, “then something else, maybe something worse. So why not control it and profit from it. And then the legendary Night City merc, who certainly _never_ cut her teeth on such low life endeavors in her early years, could take her newfound moral high ground to dole out her lofty ambitions.”

“I never took your dirty gigs, Wakako. At least not knowingly.”

“Hardly the point to split hairs over. But now that you have power and status, and all you have used it for is finding lost children and renovating a trailer park.” She sniffed. “You waste such potential, but if we can find a common ground and work together, you can let the underbelly slink along as it always has, while you make the world a better place with your nose above the dirty water you detest so much.”

“Even if I believed Soulkiller could ever be used for anything good, I sure as fuck wouldn’t finance it off your underbelly, Wakako.”

“Then make demands, set terms, and wash your hands of it. We can design a compact, and I will honor our agreements as I always have.”

“You’re something else, you really are.”

 _“V, the Playhouse darknet site just went offline. It’s…vanished, footprints and all, like it never existed in the first place. And…what, wait, what the fuck?”_ Randy stammered a few more curses under his breath. _“Johnny just contacted us. He’s got full control. Holy fuck, V, it worked!”_

I tried to keep the relief from my posture, but Wakako was too clever to miss it. “Seems you have other plans and they have come to fruition?”

“You could say that, yeah. Playhouse is offline.”

“And the engrams?”

“Are safe and you’ll never fucking touch them.”

Wakako raised her hands, a motion of surrender. “Then you have won the game, my dear, and I congratulate you. You cannot blame me for trying.”

“No, but I can blame you for fucking with my family. It was you, wasn’t it? You sent the threat to Joss Kutcher’s trailer?” I didn’t even bother to hide the raw rage from my voice. “Don’t you dare lie to me now, Wakako.”

She dipped her head once in a nod. “I did. You were taking longer than normal to make headway. I only wished to motivate you properly, to bring closure to this affair one way or another.”

I smirked. “Well, I might not have blamed you for trying, Wakako. Might have even found some work around, who knows.”

She smiled sweetly at me, rising from the chair and dusting off her pants suit. “I’m glad we understand each other.”

“No, I don’t think you understand me at all. No one fucks with my family.”

 _“Oh shit, V wait – don’t!”_ Randy chimed in my ear at the same time I pulled the trigger, putting a bullet between Wakako’s eyes, the single crack echoing off the walls. She went down hard, dead before she hit the ground.

“No one fucks with my family,” I whispered into the silence that followed. “No one.”


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after 4. Progression. Team Ward is on the hunt for a serial killer in Night City.

_“Are you going to tell me this is a joke?”_ Rogue asked over the holo. I leaned against the wall just outside the server hub.

“No,” I said as I rubbed my arms, still chilled from the nitro. “No, not a joke.”

_“Christ, V. No thoughts on how maybe this wasn’t the best plan of action? Not even close to the best choice on a long list? You just executed a fixer.”_

“If you’re trying to make me feel bad about, it’s not going to work. She threatened my family, Rogue. Threatened to put my niece and nephew in Playhouse. I let that walk? Who comes after them next? I’m sending a clear message. They’re fucking off limits.”

_“This is the kind of shit that causes solos problems, V. Remember Dex? Causes ripples. Ever think maybe fixers won’t want to work with a merc that’s this trigger happy?”_

“I thought most of you loved a trigger happy merc.”

_“I’m being serious, V. Might be better if you tried to cover your tracks.”_

“No.” I leveled her with a hard stare through the holo. “I’ll kill anyone who touches my family. Even a fixer.”

Rogue was silent for a minute, her lips pressed in a tight line. _“Tyger claws are going to be all over your ass at the very least.”_

“They’ll do what they need to do,” I said with a shrug. It wasn’t meant as a boast, was just the truth.

Rogue chuckled then. _“I’m starting to think Johnny rubbed off on you more than any of us realized.”_

Well, a lead in didn’t get much cleaner than that. “About Johnny. He’s the reason we got into Playhouse and gained control over it. I went to Blackwall again and brought him back with me.”

_“What?”_

“Johnny is in Playhouse, his engram. He overrode the code and took control of Playhouse, everything. The other engrams are safe in stasis for now, and we need to figure out what comes next. But if you wanted, you could visit him. You know, without me as the middle man this time.”

Rogue hesitated, then said, _“I’ll think about it. Keep me posted on this, V. And watch your back.”_

“I always do. Thanks, Rogue.”

After we disconnected the call, I stayed there for a few minutes, leaning against the wall. I was fucking exhausted. And while I was still furious at Johnny for fucking with my engram code without my permission, it was weird to be without him in my head again. It had only been a few days, but we’d fallen back into how things were before Mikoshi, and letting him ago again was bittersweet, even though I still had to get him to back to Blackwall after we figured this shit out.

I shoved off the wall and stepped back into the Playhouse hub. Shuddered at calling it that still and immediately said, “We need a new name for this shit.”

Nix and Randy were huddled around the main access terminal, I assumed still talking with Johnny from the inside. Viktor and River had just finished moving the three bodies off to the side, covering them with tarps.

River closed the gap when he saw me, wrapping his arms around me and kissing my temple. Viktor gave me a look and I sighed.

“Can you wait a few minutes for a check-up, Vik? I just…need to…”

River squeezed me tighter.

“Sure, kid,” Vik said, and wandered over to listen in on whatever Johnny was sharing.

I sighed again, resting my forehead against River’s shoulder. He ran his fingers along my nape, slow and gentle circles. “Gonna be fallout,” I said quietly, then tried to lighten the mood by adding. “Might be time to get those turrets I’ve been begging for.”

He kissed the top of my head. “How bad do you expect it to be?”

“Tyger Claws will definitely be a problem right away, at least from Wakako’s sons, but maybe it’s about time someone wiped them off the map anyway.”

“V, you can’t take out an entire gang by yourself.”

“Got rid of the Voodoo Boys, didn’t I?”

He grunted. “What about the other fixers?”

“Rogue isn’t happy, but she’s not going to ghost me. I’m not worried about Dakota, Dino and Regina, either. As for the rest.” I shrugged against him. “I’ll have enough connections without them if it comes to that.”

He squeezed the back of my neck, and I leaned harder into him, letting him prop me up for a minute. His voice went hushed. “I heard her, how she didn’t even try to deny it. Wanted to come in and shot her myself.”

“Not you, babe. Never you.” I grabbed the front of his shirt as I pushed back from him. Made him look at me. “I’d never let you be there again. I love you too much for that. I’ll always be the executioner if it comes down to it. Always.”

River’s lips were pressed in a thin line.

“But I didn’t do this for you, River. I did it for me. I did it for us. They’re my family, too.”

“I know, V. I know.” He pressed his forehead to mine. We breathed each other in for a moment, and as much as I wanted to stay in his arms, we weren’t finished yet with this damn mess. I stepped back.

“I need to jack in, talk to Johnny and see where we stand. Not a dive this time,” I added, giving Viktor a pointed look when he turned around at my comment. “Just gonna load up the sim with him.”

River gave my hand a squeeze. I walked over to the chair. I raised a brow at Randy as he jumped into the second seat.

“What?” Randy asked. Then he grinned like damn idiot. “Johnny said I’m, like, his second in command now while we’re figuring out what do with the engram vault. He said it would help to have a netrunner on the outside. He figured you’ll be too busy being shot at for the foreseeable future to be much help.”

“He would say that.” I rolled my eyes and grabbed the jack. “Gonna get an autograph while we’re in there?”

“You really think he would?”

“Randy, please don’t make Johnny worse than he already is.”


End file.
